


Ace in the Hole

by Cullhach



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Asexual Keith (Voltron), Canon-Typical Violence, Choose Wisely, Choose Your Own Adventure, Cookies, Fluff, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Multiple Endings, Some Endings are Serious, Some are not, Time Loop, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 17:32:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 46
Words: 23,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19322854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cullhach/pseuds/Cullhach
Summary: Keith’s day started out as one of those perfectly average days you read about sometimes, generally on the first page of a disaster.Follow Keith down the uncertain line between one reality and the next, where each of his decisions have more impact than he will ever fully realize.(A choose-your-own-adventure type story, except it’s Keith’s adventure you’re choosing.)





	1. Genesis

**Author's Note:**

> Wherein some decisions actually are black and white.

It started out as a perfectly, absolutely, terribly average day.  

 

That’s what they always say, isn’t it?  A day like any other, what could possibly go wrong?  And perhaps it  _ was _ destined to be a perfectly average day aboard the castleship.  That remained to be seen.

 

-o-o-o-o-o-

 

Shiro had a headache.  It was one of those headaches where it feels like you actually have two headaches at the same time, and they are aiming to add a third member to the family, but end up having triplets instead.  Only, in this case, it wasn’t really a headache, and it’s name was Slav.

 

Slav had been on board all day, and Shiro was feeling it.  Acutely, if the look on his face was anything to go by.

 

Keith had witnessed Shiro in many different kinds of distress, but this was a new and fascinating flavor that he had never seen before.  Shiro, the neverending well of patience, the very model for level headed thinking back at the garrison, was cracking so quickly that Keith couldn’t decide whether to be amused or horrified.

 

He was leaning towards amused, and Shiro could tell, if the look of betrayal he shot Keith was anything to go by.

 

“And that, THAT, is why e v e r y o n e should be wearing black socks today.  Black!” Slav’s voice carried through the room, arms waving as he finished up his explanation to Pidge and Hunk, who had asked for his opinion on accident.  Keith had lost track of the conversation after two or three sentences, too interested in the way Shiro was clenching his jaw. He made eye contact with Lance from across the bridge, who smirked and nodded subtly toward Shiro.  Keith returned the barest ghost of a smile, and Shiro cleared his throat loudly in his direction.

 

Nothing escaped that man.  Keith swallowed the grin. 

 

“Yeah, but I still don’t understand what our socks have to do with the teludav?  Like, they’re totally unrelated.” Hunk chimed in, Pidge shrugging as she typed something on her datapad.

 

“Oh-ho, and when did you become such an expert on relativity?”  Slav squinted. “Nothing in this reality or any other is entirely unrelated.” He scuttled up the back of Pidge’s chair to be eye-level with Hunk.  “And don’t forget it!”

 

Hunk laughed, nervous at the sudden proximity. Slav held the eye contact much longer than was necessary before his gaze shifted onto Keith.

 

“And YOU!”  Slav pointed three of his pointer fingers at a startled Keith before pointing two others toward Shiro.  “Take him out of this room. He is decreasing our likelihood of success by nearly 1 percent every time he makes that face.”

 

Keith almost choked on his spit.  Lance was less fortunate, breaking down into a coughing fit that left him in tears.  Even Pidge looked up. 

 

Shiro’s face shuffled through several expressions before landing on a tight smile, realizing that this was his big break.  He nodded toward the door, and Keith followed him out, torn between offense and relief.

 

“And don’t step on any cracks while you’re out there!”  Slav called out rapid-fire before the doors slid shut, leaving them in silence.

 

Shiro scrubbed at his hair.  “How does the training deck sound?”

 

Keith had been hoping he’d ask. 

 

-o-o-o-o-o-

 

Call it weird, but Keith actually kind of enjoyed sweating.  Maybe it had something to do with living in a desert for most of his life.  Maybe it was a way to measure physical accomplishment, or a solid day's work.  Whatever the reason, Keith enjoyed sweating, and this was one of the many things that made the training deck a haven of sorts.  

 

Shiro seemed to share that sentiment, though it was probably less related to the sweating.

 

Keith feinted at the training bot, pulling back as it’s arm swung wide in response, and Shiro jumped at the opening, jabbing his arm through the bots open torso and the duos personal record at that particular training sequence.  The training deck let out a triumphant little jingle to let them know so, and Keith laughed, breathless, as Shiro slapped him on the back. They panted quietly.

 

“Excellent job, Keith.” Shiro grinned, eyes crinkling as the two began some cool down stretches.  “The agility exercises are really starting to show.”

 

Keith knew it, but he didn’t mind a little affirmation here and there.  “Not so bad yourself.” 

 

He could admit that he still wasn’t quite used to Shiro’s adjusted fighting style.  They’d sparred before the Kerberos mission, but this was an entirely new ballfield. It had taken work to get back to their old level of coordination.  Whether he remembered it all or not, Shiro had picked up a lot of things during his year away.

 

“Well, I’m going to go shower.”  Shiro paused, and scrunched his nose, teasing.  “You should probably do the same.” 

 

Keith snorted and elbowed him, gulping at a packet of water.  “See you in the lounge after?” Slav never visited the lounge.  It had something to do with the couches increasing the chances of death a hundred fold or whatever, so Keith knew it was the most peaceful option for everyone on board.

 

Shiro nodded, mouth twitching.  Any other day he would protest at sitting around, but he was also aware of Slav’s aversion to the lounge.

 

With that decided, Keith exited with a wave and turned toward his room. 

 

A minute later found him digging through the single drawer he actually used.  A black shirt emerged, followed by jeans and a pair of boxers. He stopped, though, as he reached for his socks.  He had two options, black and white. He hardly ever payed attention to which ones he grabbed, as they never showed under his boots anyway.  

 

Today, though, he paused.

He lifted his hand again, reaching into the drawer,

 

> **and selected the Black Socks** (Jump to Chapter 21)

> **and selected the White Socks** (Jump to Chapter 14)


	2. Chapter 2

“We’re as good as dead.” Slav shook his head, beak clicking loudly.  

 

Keith stumbled to one knee, and barely had a moment to be surprised to find himself back on the bridge before his stomach twisted sharply.  In a matter of seconds, he was covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and he squeezed his stomach tightly in an attempt to ease the pain and stop the trembling in his hands.  “What-- what happened?”

 

“It’s hard to tell, with these things,”  Slav replied. “Sometimes people make honest mistakes.  They get ahead of themselves, they forget to read the instructions, they get distracted at the wrong moment.  Other times, curiosity is to blame.” He hummed, pacing slowly towards Keith, who gritted his teeth as his head began throbbing along with his stomach.  He hunched over in a wave of dizziness, and, oddly enough, had a strong craving for chocolate milk. Keith was baffled.

 

“I don’t--”  He forced the words, slightly slurred, “--don’t understand-- what-- how--”

 

Slav looked just past Keith’s shoulder, eyeball grazing the fourth wall with a squinty glare.  “Someone is r e a d i n g this chapter, even though, chronologically, it doesn’t exist. It’s entirely unreferenced by any other timeline, a bubble universe all of it’s own.  By my original calculations, this had less than a 2% chance of happening.”

 

Keith shook his head, eyes closed.  “Who…?”

 

Slav continued his pacing, four of his hands clasped behind his back, two in front.  “The Reader. They skipped around and landed here.”

 

Slav gestured around himself in general.

 

“They have the power to stop this, you know.”  he glanced back to Keith, who had curled forward to rest his forehead on the ground.  “They can stop reading at any point, and go back to CHAPTER ONE and do this the right way.  Honestly, the only reason you are suffering is because they are still reading.”

 

A tear leaked slowly through Keith’s eyelashes, making its way carefully up Keith’s forehead before disappearing into his hairline.  Keith barely registered it’s passing, confused and overwhelmed by pain. Why?

 

Slav grunted.  “Any time now.”

 

Keith sobbed.

 

Slav folded his arms.

 

Keith slumped to his side, curling into the tightest ball he could manage (which wasn’t very tight at all).

 

“Now you’re just being rude.”  Slav shook his head in disgust.  “I hope you feel bad.”

 

Keith sobbed again, arms falling completely limp, head throbbing.  He wasn’t sure how he hadn’t blacked out at this point, wavery as his vision was, and he had the vague idea that he was sweating enough to warrant another shower.

 

“Wow.  I suppose it is up to me to get rid of you, as you clearly can’t be trusted to use your power correctly.”  Slav muttered. “Yes, I said power. You’ve always had the power to choose.” He hummed, ignoring Kieth’s prone figure as he spoke.  

 

“If you don’t like something you are reading, you have the power to stop at any time.  You can set it down and never look back, you can skip ahead if it’s too much for you, you can go back and start over.  You have so much influence over seemingly insignificant parts of your own existence, and by extension, this universe. Your choices echo into the literal and actual infinite web of space and time.  A smile, a frown, kicking a pebble, picking your nose. You will never know how big an impact these little things have.”

 

“And yet,” Slav paused to take a breath, “you are STILL R E A D I N G.  Maybe you actually like this?”

 

Slav stood to his full height, cleared his throat, and glared straight at the fourth wall.

 

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“Are you s e r i o u s l y still here?!”  Slav cried, indignant.

 

Keith lay motionless on the floor, having died alone and without purpose, the two things he had most feared.

 

Slav tried, he really did.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dunno. Don't ask. Or do. Whatever.


	3. Chapter 3

Keith groaned before speeding over to boost Slav, who promptly clung to his arm and lifted himself the rest of the way up.  “Ten percent chance---.” he muttered under his breath, pulling several wires out of the wall and then hissing as one sparked.

 

“Are you--- are you trying to hotwire the ship?”  Keith spitballed, trying not to get any Slav in his mouth as he craned his neck to see.

 

“That is an i n c r e d i b l y unsophisticated way of putting it, but yes.”  The wires sparked again, and Slav clicked his beak in irritation. “Less talking, more holding still!”

 

Keith chose not to respond, glancing back to the wavering energy field with some trepidation.  Hopefully the others were holding out. The lights flickered, accompanied by what sounded like a swear.

 

“You, hold these two wires together!”  Slav shuffled around Keith’s head until Keith was able to reach out and grab the proffered wires.  “I need to reverse the polarity! DO not pull those two apart!” He clambered down to the floor, and ran for the closest datapad.

 

The ship shuddered, lights flaring up momentarily.  Keith forgot to blink as the distortion nearest to him somehow bent away from and towards him  _ at the same time _ .  He came close to dropping the wires altogether when he unexpectedly found himself looking at--- himself?

 

Well, most of himself.  Half of his other torso was still behind the weird shifty wall.

 

“Let go of the wires!”  Other Keith gasped, struggling to pull himself through.

 

Slavsaid the swear again.  “Don’t do it! That will decrease our chances of escape by 88.3 percent!”

 

Keith looked between the two.  Slav typed away desperately at the datapad, twisting the armchair in a death grip, while Other Keith cried out, trying without success to push himself the rest of the way through.

 

“LET THEM GO!” Other Keith shouted, twisting toward Keith.  “I’m YOU! Trust me!”

 

“Nooo nonono no no!”  Slav countered, looking up in a panic.  “I don’t know what reality he’s from, but I’ve almost got the engines in reverse.  Five more seconds!”

 

Keith considered himself to be a decisive person in general, but this one was a doozy.  He hesitated. 

 

> **Keith drops the wires**  (Jump to Chapter 17)

> **Keith holds the wires firm**   (Jump to Chapter 29)


	4. Chapter 4

A chill passed over him.

 

Rapid footsteps approached, and he kinked his neck as he whipped up to see Shiro.

 

“Shiro!”

 

“Paladins,”  Coran’s voice buzzed in the background, unheeded.  “There---fortunate-- --t---teluda---- -- -” 

 

“Shiro, go back!  Go back!” Keith shouted, running to meet him halfway.  

 

Shiro kept running, face determined.  “Keith, run! This way!” 

 

“No, Shiro, we can’t go that way--- Shiro!”  

 

Shiro shook his head firmly, towing a stumbling Keith down the hall toward the dreaded stairwell.  He didn’t understand--!

 

“We can’t go this way!  You’ll die!” Keith begged.

 

Shiro tugged him forward as gravity bent over sideways.

 

“We die down that way too!” 

 

It was like ice water pouring over his head and down his back.  

 

“I’ve tried everything down that hallway,”  Shiro’s voice cracked as he bodily pulled Keith forward,  “and you have to trust me. This is the only way.”

 

The metal in the hallway behind them screeched.  Keith felt his throat constrict.

 

“At least this way,”  Shiro struggled forward, “one of us can make it out of here.”

 

Keith opened his mouth to protest, to scream, to beg, but nothing came out.  Shiro looked behind them in alarm as the ceiling gave way, and with a last desperate shove, Keith was flung into the open stairwell.

 

alone 

 

alone

 

_ alone _

 

He bit back that train of thought, forcing it into the dark corner of his consciousness it had broken away from.  _  I’m ok I’m ok I’m ok I’m ok I’m ok. _

 

The mantra repeated over and over in his mind until he could almost pretend to believe it.

 

But it wasn’t ok.

 

He lay there, staring at the ruin above him.  Shiro had said there was no way. That this way, at least one of them survived.

 

It wasn’t fair.

 

Why did the universe always have to take Shiro?

 

Keith didn’t know what he was feeling anymore. Didn’t want to feel anymore.  He sat up, wincing as his belt pulled against a fresh bruise. 

 

He reached back, and his hand brushed his belt pocket.  The deck of cards was still intact, somehow. The universe was a cruel dealer, and Shiro had left him in the lurch.

 

He wanted to disappear.

 

A faint glow interrupted his thoughts as the wall of energy slid into view.

 

He watched it, nebulous and ethereal, despair weighing on his mind. 

  
  


> **He backed away.** (Jump to Chapter 13)

> **He reached out and touched it.** (Jump to Chapter 20)


	5. Chapter 5

Keith was not one to back down from a challenge, even though he wasn’t sure what dogs had to do with anything.  

 

“Yeah?  I could beat you to the lounge while stepping  _ only _ on cracks.”  Keith smirked.

 

“Readygo!”  Pidge shouted, taking off down the hallway without warning.

 

Keith let it slide.  She was carrying a tablet.

 

He came close to bumping into pillars a few times, but soon got the hang of twisting to the side each time he passed one.  Pidge had the advantage on the outer wall as they turned a corner, able to push off and keep her momentum where Keith had to slow down so as not to overshoot the turn.

 

They were on the home stretch, and Keith had nearly pulled even with Pidge when all of the alarms went off.  Keith skidded to a stop, Pidge nearly throwing her tablet in surprise.

 

“Several enemy ships have made an appearance,”  Allura called over the speaker. “Paladins, to the bridge.”

 

Pidge sighed.  “I thought it’d been suspiciously long since we had an encounter.” 

 

They nodded to each other and changed route.

 

-o-o-o-o-o-

 

Slavs wailing was audible before they’d even opened the door, which always bode well.  Keith pushed through.

 

“It is too dangerous!”  Slav was shouting, shaking his tiny fists at the alteans.  “This ship’s shields are designed to resist many different forces, but one of this magnitude is unprecedented!”

 

Hunk jogged through the door, followed closely by Lance and Shiro.

 

“If it is truly as dangerous as you say, we cannot simply let them escape with it.”  Allura replied with a shake of her head. “This system has potential allies. I cannot believe that the weapons presence here is coincidence.”

 

“What’s going on?” Shiro interjected, stepping forward to look at the fleet displayed on screen.

 

Coran clicked a button, zooming in on the flagship.  “The empire appears to have been innovating while we were busy!”  He relayed, zooming even closer so that a large cannon-like weapon filled the screen.  “Luckily, I don’t think they’ve noticed us yet, hidden as we are in this asteroid field!”

 

“That weapon is made from one of the blueprints they stole during my captivity.”  Slav danced nervously in place. “The details will be lost on your primitive brains, so I will keep it simple: That cannon is capable of shooting a concentrated beam of antiprotons through this magnetic tunnel.”  He pointed at the base of the weapon, waiting for a reaction.

 

Pidge and Hunk glanced at each other.

 

Lance sniffed.  “I’ve definitely heard of those before, but could you explain what that means for Keith’s sake?” 

 

Rude.  Not wrong though.  Keith wasn’t following.

 

“The universe that you interact with is made of protons and electrons and neutrons!  Matter!” Slav waved all of his hands irritably. “If any of that comes into contact with antimatter, or in this case antiprotons specifically, it will disappear in a flash of light!”

 

Lance raised his hand. “Um, I thought you couldn’t destroy matter.” 

 

“What do you think the flash of light is from?!  In addition to some subatomic partic---” 

 

“Ok I get it.”  Lance interrupted.  “It’s bad and we need to stop it.  What’s the holdup?”

 

Slav narrowed his eyes.  It was hard to read the aliens facial expressions when he had a beak instead of a mouth, but judging by the lack of words, Keith decided that speechless covered it.

 

Coran cleared his throat.  “The problem, number three, is that while the castleship does have a shield, and it does account for antiparticles, we don’t know if it can withstand the sheer magnitude that this weapon is capable of producing.”

 

“Literal annihilation!” Slav shrieked.

 

“I suspect that they plan to use this weapon to eliminate resistance in this system.”  Allura spoke again. “We should at least try to disable the weapon.”

 

“Could we scramble it from the inside?”  Shiro suggested. 

 

Pidge perked up.  “With Slav’s insider knowledge of the weapon, maybe we create a program that will disrupt it somehow?”

 

“If we could compromise the magnetic tunnel, then maybe the weapon would, like, self destruct?”  Hunk offered.

 

“That--!  Could actually work.”  Slav hummed, deep in thought.  “If we target the cooling system, the high levels of energy needed to produce and focus antiprotons at that magnitude would compromise the integrity of the magnetic tunnel, causing the beam to disperse rather than focus, effectively destroying the canon from the inside!”  He cackled, suddenly very enthusiastic about the whole thing.

 

“We will need two teams, one as a distraction in case they try to fire in the interim, and one to implement the program, once it is complete.”  Allura nodded at Pidge, who followed Slav to her workstation, datapad already displaying a picture of the weapon.

 

“Pidge will be on the stealth mission, as will Lance.  Shiro and Hunk, your lions will be able to take hits the others wouldn’t, so I would prefer that we keep you as the defense team.  Keith---” Allura trailed off, thinking. “The red lions speed would be beneficial in a dogfight, but your close combat would compliment Lance’s range should anything go wrong while Pidge implements her program.”

 

“So, which is it?”  Keith folded his arms.

 

“Looks like a draw.”  Lance strode up to Keith and swung an arm over his shoulder.  “The red paladin is supposed to have great instincts or whatever, right?  Let’s let him decide.”

 

Shiro smiled.  “You’re our wild card, Keith.  What do you think?”

 

> **Defense Team.** (Jump to Chapter 12)

> **Stealth Mission.** (Jump to Chapter 37)

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize if I have offended any physicists or chemists or whoever else cares with my basic understanding of how the the known universe works.


	6. Chapter 6

“Just protect Pidge!”  Keith shouted, voice cracking.  The sentries continued their barrage, stopping just out of range of his sword. Their shields would hold.  It would be ok.

 

“We need-- an extraction-- before-- the whole ship-- goes up.”  Pidge gasped from behind, and Keith bit his lip until he tasted blood.  

 

Lance was on it, voice at least an octave higher than usual as he called for assistance.  Keith clenched his jaw. _He should have thought of that, should have been able to do something, should have_ \---

 

He staggered back as something slammed into his shield, knocking him off his train of thought.  A new sentry had shown up, carrying a much larger gun. The weapon hummed as it charged, audible even over the continued fire from the other sentries, before shooting off a second beam.  Keith was prepared this time, bracing against the impact.

 

“---We’re trying, but every time we get close, another swarm gets in the way!”  Hunks voice registered. “I can’t outmaneuver them!”

 

Keith’s mind folded in on itself.  He’d made the wrong decision. Red could have outflown anything, would have been able to shoot the gap for a quick rescue.  He should have stayed back. Then they wouldn’t have been discovered, then Pidge wouldn’t have gotten hurt.

 

He braced for another hit, and his shield flickered momentarily after impact, a smaller shot whizzing dangerously close to his face before the shield solidified again.

 

“What was that?!”  Lance yelled at the same time Pidge shouted “Keith!”

 

Keith didn’t answer.

 

They were going to die.

 

Pidge was hurt and they were going to die and it was _his fault._

 

Shiro yelled something over the comms, but the words were lost to Keith.  He sounded upset.

 

Another shot, and another, and another.  

 

Keith’s shield finally fizzled out with a sad little pop.  He turned wildly in a last attempt to defend, throwing his arm out to scoop a protesting Pidge between them before hugging Lance from behind.  He heard the telltale hum of the gun charging, and braced himself for impact.

 

“Keith!”  Pidge squirmed, panicked.

 

“I’m sorry,”  He said breathlessly, throat tight, and then the world exploded.

 

The three were thrown forward as the hallway shattered, falling into a confused heap on the floor.  The upside down head of the Red Lion greeted them, sentries littering the floor around her, and the sound of tearing metal made Keith look behind.  The Green Lions maw materialized from a hole in the wall, opening wide for them to enter.

 

Lance whooped, and even Keith managed a small noise of relief.

 

“--Get--- off--”  Pidge wheezed, writhing where she lay, and Keith scrambled to move.  Lance crawled over to her, wincing as his eyes fell over the holes burned through the back of her armor.  

 

“Green’s here, Pidge; it’s all gonna be ok.  I just need to carry you up her ramp, ok? We need to get out of here, yeah?”

 

Lance carefully scooped the smaller paladin up, picking his way carefully to the Green Lion and ignoring Pidges insistence that she could walk.  Keith followed closely. He could still feel the adrenaline burning through him, mixing with the sudden relief to leave him a jittery mess. He stumbled up the ramp.  At least the base hadn’t exploded on them, he thought vaguely.

 

Lance set Pidge in the pilot seat, and soon they were pulling away from the ship.  Lance hovered, fussing over Pidge, who brushed him off with a scowl. Keith huffed. The interaction was familiar.  He’d been on both sides of the conversation himself. They all had.

 

He eased himself down in the back corner.  The jittering was making it harder to stand as the Green lion moved, and he didn’t want to fall on his face.

 

Black and Yellow were still in the middle of a firefight, locked in a dance with several galra fighters.  Red growled, swooping out to intercept one as it pulled away to shoot at Green.

 

“Good kitty.”  Keith slurred, and Red grumbled back worriedly.  “M’fine,” he replied, resting his eyes as he leaned his head against the wall.  She growled again, and he frowned. It was fine.

 

Everything was

 

just

 

fine

 

.

  


-o-o-o-o-o-

 

Keith jerked back and connected with a wall as gravity shifted beneath him.  He leaned back into the solid surface, waiting for the world to right itself, and blinked.  The world slowed to a stop, but something in front of him kept moving. It was Pidge, waving at him.  She was dressed in the white and grey of an altean pod suit, and further inspection revealed the rest of the team standing around her in various stages of relief.  She must have been in a pod. That was good. Everything was good. Except that, wait, he was the one currently standing in a pod, not Pidge? What?

 

He just stood there, trying to work through how he’d ended up in the pod.  Everyone shuffled a bit, and Coran finally cleared his throat. “You can come out whenever you’re ready, number four.”

 

“Oh.”  He rasped, swallowing.  He reached out and pulled himself forward.  “Um--?”

 

“Oh my gosh, Keith.”  Hunk was the first to break, pushing forward with a pouch of water in hand, which he shoved at Keith before half dragging him the rest of the way out.  “There were a million fighter ships out there and we couldn’t get to you and I thought you guys were gonna get vaporized!”

 

And like that, the full memory of the disastrous mission shoved its way out of the compartment it had been hiding in, along with a good measure of the panic and stress that he’d failed so miserably at controlling before.  The pouch slipped from his nerveless hand, flopping once before coming to a rest. Keiths eyes darted to Pidge, then to Lance, and then down at the water pouch. Liquid dribbled slowly from the straw Hunk had inserted, gathering at the tip before falling with an inaudible plip.  He felt his eyes rapidly heading in the same direction, breathing coming in gasps that he tried to control by holding his breath.

 

“Aw man, Keith?”

 

There were footsteps, and a glance at the shoes told him that Shiro was standing in front of him.  

 

“Keith?”

 

Keith didn’t have any words, so he slowly leaned his head forward until he bumped into the wall that was Shiro, who took that as an invitation for a hug.  Everyone else did too, and Keith ended up in the middle of a tangle of arms and heads and pointy chins. Pidge wormed her way to the middle, planting herself firmly under his arm.

 

“It’s ok, Keith.”  She whispered, which only served to elicit a jerky sob that Keith tried to cut off, resulting in a muffled whimper at the back of his throat.  “We made it. Red and Green scared them out of firing that cannon, and we made it. It’s fine.”

 

Keith shook his head.  It absolutely was not fine.

 

“It’s my fault,” he gasped back in broken pieces.  “You got hurt, Pidge. My fault.”

 

“So did you, genius.”  Pidge scowled into Keiths side.  “I got a little flesh wound, yeah, but your whole back was perforated by what was left of your jetpack.  That gun was no joke.”

 

“But it’s my fault.”  Keith repeated. She clearly didn’t understand.  

 

“You can steal all the blame from the galra if it’s what your stubborn butt wants, but we’re not doing the guilt thing.”  Pidge angled her head to smirked up at him. “We were in a bad spot, and you _saved_ us at least twice.  We all made it. It was awful, and scary, but we made it.  That’s all I care about.”

 

The pointy chin in his left shoulder nodded in agreement, and Keith finally relaxed into the hug.  They stood there for a long minute, together and warm and alive. The sobs came back, heavy with relief, and Hunk joined him halfway.  The others did their fair share of sniffling, though Lance tried to deny it later.

 

“Let’s allow everyone to settle down before we debrief, yes?”  Allura suggested from somewhere in the back.

 

“I made cookies!”  Hunk warbled. “I hope you guys like peanut butter.”

 

Pidge cheered, nearly smacking Lance in the face as she went in for a high five.

 

Keith laughed wetly, and Shiro patted his back as everyone pulled away.

 

“You ok, buddy?”

 

Keith wiped his nose and offered a shrug.

 

“I will be.”

 

There would be nights when sleep wouldn’t come, and days when the memories were too much, but time has a way of dulling sharp points and wearing the greatest stone into sand.  

 

I will be, Keith had said, and eventually, he was.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Cookies And Hugs Ending
> 
> Here are the cookies and hugs that Keith deserves, and you are the one he has to thank for them. Bless you.


	7. Chapter 7

“Lance!”  Keith shouted in warning, diving in front of Pidge, shield pinging as the sentries fired.  Lance twisted to the side, shield raised, it’s owner flailing out with an “oof” as he simultaneously held it forward toward the first group of sentries and jumped back to group with his teammates, stumbling slightly as they huddled.

 

“Quiznack.”  Lance grit his teeth.  He clutched at his side, breath coming in short gasps.  Two scorch marks were visible despite the dark color of his suit, and Keith reeled with guilt.  That was  _ his fault. _

 

“Lance, do you-- can you still shoot back?”  Keith grimaced as he spoke. 

 

Lance nodded, scooting back between the shields of his teammates and deactivating his own.  More sentries were piling in from behind, and they began to move forward down the hallway.

 

Pidge glanced back.  “Go for the ones blocking the exit.  Then we can make a run for it.” 

 

Lance obliged, sucking in a breath as he leaned out with his bayard.  

 

The larger group of sentries advanced, nearly upon the trio after realizing there was no resistance.  A quick glance told him that Lance still had two sentries to hit. Keith shuffled, indecisive. He could keep up the shield and hope that Lance finished quickly, or he could engage the enemy to buy them some time.

 

> **He Protec.** (Jump to Chapter 38)

> **He Attac.** (Jump to Chapter 30)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But most importantly, Lance said Quiznack.


	8. Chapter 8

The door slid open, and Allura stepped into the room.  “Slav is rearranging everything in the kitchen. I thought you should know.”

 

Hunks face contorted in horror.  Shiro patted his back in sympathy, and they all shared a moment of silence together.

 

Shiro cleared his throat.  “Maybe it’s best if we don’t disturb him.”

 

Everyone nodded in silent agreement.

 

Coran came striding through the threshold next with a chipper hum, and the whole room seemed to wobble a little around the edges.  Then it wobbled even harder. Then it felt like something slammed into Keith's brain, and several things happened all at once.

 

Pidge squawked.  Keith caught himself halfway to the floor as wave of vertigo had him tilting sideways.  Hunk yelped in surprise somewhere, and Shiro let out an expletive that had Keith reeling even more than the vertigo.  

 

He squinted, trying to fight through his jumpy vision.  Someone dropped something. The lights flickered, because flickering lights are a good indicator that something, somewhere, has happened.

 

Hunk raised his hand as the word righted itself.  “Um. What happened? I was rewiring the teludav console---?”  The front of his shirt was riddled with charred holes.

 

“Keith?!”  Shiro’s voice cracked.

 

The Keith in question was pulled off the floor and into a crushing hug before he could make heads or tails of the situation.

 

Lance was patting his torso down frantically, face pale.  Pidge looked like she’d just woke up, and Allura just stood there, confused, with a hand outstretched toward nothing.

 

“Well, that was interesting.”  Coran chirped. He reached down to pick up his datapad, and nearly dropped it again as Slav’s voice screeched over the intercom.

 

“Is everyone accounted for?”  He shouted, mouth too close to the speaker for anyone's comfort.  They glanced around at each other, and Coran gave him an affirmative.  

 

“What happened?”  Allura asked.

 

“Oooh-ho-ho-hoh!”  The glee was tangible.  “Several alternate realities have converged back together into this one!  It’s unheard of!” Keith took another good look around at everyone. It would explain a lot, he supposed.  “I had thought that the convergence point was your yellow paladin, but it turns out that it is actually food that brings everyone together!”

 

“I knew it.”  Hunk intoned.

 

Shiro sank down to the couch.  “So, this reality isn’t real?”

 

“All realities are  _ real _ ,”  Slav scolded, “and as I have previously stated, several divergent realities have recombined.  They are one and the same from this point forward.” 

 

Shiro sighed in relief.

 

“Were we--- playing board games?”  Lance asked, still a little shaken.

 

“I was winning at board games.”  Keith corrected. Lance hummed doubtfully, crouching down to pick up a purple crystal.

 

Pidge’s eyes lit up upon examining the box.  “Oh man, it’s about color coding things!”

 

Slav continued to crow over the speaker about proving some hypothesis 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haaahaha this isn't part of anything, just a placeholder for if I ever get around to finishing the last branch on this story tree. x.x


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Public Service Announcement:  
> You've stumbled upon the branch where people may or may not die. Some endings are the happy and some are the sadness. You have been warned I guess.

Keith stepped solidly on the crack before jerking back, adrenaline shooting through him as the  alarms blared out of nowhere. He stared wide-eyed at the crack, before shaking his head lightly.  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose. Correlation did not always mean causation, after all.  It was just a silly superstition.

 

A chill passed over him.

 

Rapid footsteps approached, and he looked up to see Shiro sprinting his way.

 

“Paladins,”  Coran’s familiar voice warred with the static of the intercom.  “There---fortunate-- --t---teluda---- -- - --- fluct-- i---ace - --  -” The static won, and Shiro shared a worried glance with Keith.

 

“Sounds bad.  We’d better go and see if we can help.”

 

The two ran down the hall in tandem, heading for the emergency stairway that lead down towards the teludav, but they didn’t quite make it before the horrendous shrieking sound of tearing metal ripped through the hallway behind them.  The world shifted abruptly, and they were thrown from their feet and into the wall, which was apparently the new floor.

 

Keith’s head whipped into the ground (wall?) with a resounding crack, and his vision burst into a thousand flashes of white.  The world throbbed forward through his skull, and then Shiro was there, trying to pull him to his feet.

 

“--eith.  Keith!” Shiro’s worried face filled his vision.  Pain stabbed at his head, and Keith groaned, a wave of nausea surging up to lock his tongue.

 

“I’m sorry, buddy, we have to move!”  Shiro apologized again and again as he tried to heft Keith forward, jostling him in his haste.  This time, Keith did throw up, stumbling as he doubled over mid step, but Shiro pulled him forward relentlessly.

 

The world was too loud, too bright, too much as Keith was half dragged along the wall, and he screamed as Shiro tossed him forward, head swinging painfully on a neck that couldn’t support it.  He slid over the open stairwell and fell down to the wall inside at the same moment the ceiling crashed into the floor, and he was left in the resulting silence with a single teal light. It spun drunkenly on the wall above his head, painfully bright as it wavered.

 

Keith blinked.  And stared. He didn’t understand.  The world was jumping sideways even as he lay still.  The doorway above him was blocked by a mess of wire and  _ Shiro, _ where was Shiro?  Shiro was there and then he wasn’t and

 

_ No _ .

 

His eyes widened as they caught on something above him, and his vision jumped backwards three times.   _ No no no _ .  Four black fingers peeked just over the edge of the frame, four fingers attached to the smooth metal of a palm.

 

They didn’t move.

 

Keith dry heaved, curling onto his side, away away  _ away _ from the light.  

 

This wasn’t happening.  Not again. Shiro couldn’t,  _ wouldn’t _ .  

 

His head pulsed sharply.

 

The ship creaked, and Keith winced.  A glowing wall of  _ something _ wavered into focus before him.  A tear tracked down Keith’s nose, refracting in the strange light like a jewel.  He struggled to move as the glowing wall inched towards him, still trying to process what was happening.

 

The energy was nearly upon him, and Shiro was gone.

 

> **Don’t Move**  (Jump to Chapter 40)

> **Move**  (Jump to Chapter 40 anyway)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This arc was so easy to write, but so hard to keep straight. I may never recover fully. x.x


	10. Chapter 10

Getting trapped was not an option when the whole ship was going to vaporize at any minute.

 

He reached backwards with one hand until he found Pidge, and grasped her arm.  

 

“We can’t stay here,” he called back, eyes wild, “We have to make a run for it.”

 

“Run WHERE?!”  Lances shrill voice called back, grunting as he hefted his weapon in one hand in an attempt to return fire.

 

“Toward green, obviously,” Pidge gritted out.

 

“It was RHETORICAL,”  Lance wailed, trying to pin his gun against the wall for more support as he fired haphazardly into the air.

 

Keith had never understood how they could banter at times like this, but the familiar exchange actually helped to ground him.  Maybe they were on to something.

 

“Can you hold up your shield?”  Keith grunted at Pidge.

 

“Do yelmores travel in packs?”  She activated her shield, slinging her other arm over his shoulder for support.

 

“--Do they?”  Lance asked.

 

Pidge huffed.  “It was RHETORICAL, Lance.”

 

Keith didn’t know the answer either, but he figured it was a yes. “Lance, switch with me.  Pidge and I will head toward the exit. I’ll get them with my bayard, you cover our retreat.  Switch on one-- two-- three!”

 

They spun, Pidge angling her shield to cover them as best as she could.  Keith dismissed his own to wrap an arm around her back for support, careful to avoid her injuries.  They moved forward, hearts racing.

 

“Um, don’t panic, but they just brought out a _really_ big gun,”  Lance didn’t sound like he was taking his own advice, but Keith didn’t point it out.  “Just thought you should know.”

 

“Almost-- there--”  Keith grunted, summoning his bayard in his free hand.  It was that moment Coran began counting down from ten.

 

Keith yelled, desperately swinging his bayard to behead the three sentries.  Another swing destroyed the repair bot, and then Lance was shoving them through the door and into the garbage disposal.

 

“Six!”  Coran's voice was tight over the speaker.  The others were shouting at them, words of panic that tumbled over each other and mixed into an incomprehensible crescendo.

 

“Four!”

 

Lance slammed the airlock release.

 

“Two!”

 

The blur of Green’s head reared out of the void, in much the same way that Red had first come for Keith all those months ago.  Keith tightened his hold on his teammates, and felt them do the same in return.

 

And then everything was chaos as the Green Lion was thrown forward.  

 

Keith had never been more glad for his helmet, the impacts rattling his brain again and again despite the protection it offered.

 

The tumbling finally stopped, and they came to a rest in a heap.  Keith struggled to breathe, wheezing as he dragged air into his stunned lungs.  Pidge and Lance gasped and choked next to him, and the last of the adrenaline faded, leaving him to melt into an exhausted puddle.

 

“Guys!”

 

“Please respond!”

 

“We’re alive.”  Pidge groaned after a moment, and the com exploded with cries of relief.

 

“Let’s not do that again.”  Lance winced, reaching up to touch his neck as he carefully stretched it back and forth where he lay.

 

“This calls for a Paladin Lunch!”  Coran cheered over the speaker, and Keith’s eyes watered.  Whether from relief or from the threat of Coran’s paladin lunch is for you to decide.

 

Pidge grimaced.  “Don’t wait on me.  Please go ahead and have the lunch while I’m safe in a healing pod.”

 

“Not a chance,”  Keith offered a shaky smirk, which Pidge accepted.  

 

Lance hummed in agreement.  “Wouldn’t be the same without a full house.”

 

Keith couldn’t agree more.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Rhetorical Ending
> 
> It was rhetorical


	11. Chapter 11

“I’ll go help with the teludav.”  Keith jerked his head the other way, “Go check on Allura.”

 

Shiro nodded, and Keith jogged toward the emergency staircase.  He’d been stuck in an elevator before and was not about to risk it again anytime soon.

 

He flew down the steps with practiced ease.  A door, two lefts, a right, and a left later found him in the teludav control room.

 

He was greeted by Chaos.

 

Hunk’s lower half stuck out from beneath a panel.  He was on his back, front half deep in the open panel of machinery.  Pidge was typing away rapid fire at the consol, Coran was spraying some sort of altean fire extinguisher at an outlet (which was on fire), all while avoiding a gently wobbling wall of light, which wavered erratically over the back half of the console.

 

“Allura still isn’t responding!”  Coran warbled through the smoke. 

 

Pidge coughed. “Can you put out that fire a little faster please?”

 

“Fire?!”  Hunk’s feet went rigid, “Wait, is something on fire?!”

 

“Just a tick!  Almost got it!”  Coran replied, a little bit too cheerful for the situation.

 

“We’re going to have to reboot the system!” Pidge interrupted.  “Hunk, have you finished rewiring?”

 

“Aaaaah!  Almost! There’s a wire further back that I can’t reach!”  He squirmed in agitation. “My hand is too big!”

 

“Is there anything I can do?”  Keith asked.

 

Everyone stopped to stare.

 

“When did you get here, number four?”  Coran cocked his head.

 

Keith shrugged.  Something started beeping.

 

“Aaaah!”  Pidge whirled back to the console.  “We have to reconnect the stabilizer and do a hard reset!  Right now!”

 

“I still can’t reach the wire!”  Hunk reiterated while scooting himself out from under the panel.

 

“I can grab the wire?”  Keith offered. 

 

Pidge hesitated.  “Ok, Keith, take the wire.  Hunk, direct Keith. Coran, get that fire out and come over here, I need you at the console.  Tell me the exact second the polarity reverses for reboot, and I’ll press the button. Go!”

 

Keith slid under the panel, assisted by Hunk, who patted him on the arm with a smile.  “Thanks dude.”

 

Hunk pointed a flashlight up beneath the panel, directing Keith’s gaze towards the back.  “That dangling black cable? The sparking one? It needs to come forward and connect riiiiight here with this one.”  The flashlight swung to Keiths left, where another black cable hung, dripping sparks.

 

“Did they get cut apart?”  Keith asked.

 

“Yeah, long story.”  Hunk sighed. “I’ll tell you all about it later.”

 

“SIX SECONDS!”  Coran shouted, jump starting Keith into action.  He grasped the left cable, and then squeezed his right hand through the narrow machinery, feeling for the other.  

 

“FIVE!”

 

Keith found the cable.

 

“FOUR!”

 

He pulled, but to his dismay, his hand was stuck.  It didn’t fit back through the opening, not with his fingers closed around the cable.  He tugged desperately.

 

“THREE!”  

 

Time slowed for Keith, his stomach dropping.  What was he supposed to do? He didn’t even know what this cable was for!  What would happen if it wasn’t connected when Pidge pressed the button? He couldn’t get it through!

 

“TWO!”

 

He fumbled with the left wire, trying unsuccessfully to string it through to the other side.

 

“Keith?”  Hunk’s voice called from somewhere.

 

“ _ ONE _ !”

 

He screwed his eyes shut.

 

> **And dropped the wires like a hot potato.** (Jump to Chapter 36)

> **And used his arm to connect the circuit.** (Jump to Chapter 15)


	12. Chapter 12

 

This is where I ran out of steam.  I will probably continue this story arc at some point, but until then, Keith's gonna have to go on that stealth mission instead.  (Chapter 37) Sorry!  :p


	13. Chapter 13

It started out as a perfectly, absolutely, terribly average day.  

 

That’s what they always say, isn’t it?  A day like any other, what could possibly go wrong?  That’s how the day had started when they told Keith that Shiro wasn’t coming back from Kerberos.

 

That’s how today had started, too.  

 

Four paladins, a princess, and a royal advisor stood in the hallway, two lines of three, a cryopod flat on the ground between them.  Each took a turn to speak quiet words. Some words were light on the ears, others were heavy on the tongue. There were words that bore the bright weight of memory and quiet sorrow.  Words of regret. Words of farewell.

 

The pod launched from an airlock.  It drifted gently through the darkness, stars gleaming across it’s glossy surface, until, finally, it slid into the gravitational dip of a star.

 

And as it fell, Keith felt something inside of him fall alongside it.  He fell along with Shiro, burning with shame and remorse and anguish. Burning burning _burning_.  He should have tried harder.  Keith was on fire, and he burned away until there was nothing left.

 

Sometimes a happy ending isn’t in the cards.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ShiroGone Ending
> 
> What, this scene sounds really familiar you say?  
> You got me. I went through a Star Trek phase and Wrath of Khan has the best theme song, just saying. No bagpipes at this funeral, though I'd believe it if you told me that Coran knows how to play the altean equivalent.


	14. Chapter 14

Keith thought back to how rude Slav had been earlier, and selected the white socks.  It was petty, yes, but if choosing a sock color no one would ever even know about was the pettiest thing he did today, Keith figured he was doing pretty well.

 

He showered quickly, and towelled his hair dry, finger combing as he exited the bathroom.  He paused, sniffing his hand experimentally to see if the shampoo-esque substance from the bathroom left any lingering fragrance.

 

It didn’t.

 

He shrugged, trudging over to the laundry chute to shove his sweaty old clothes through the opening.  Patting his belt and finding everything accounted for, he made his way towards the lounge. 

 

Maybe he could badger Shiro into playing a card game instead of working on Important Things™.  Lance had magically produced a set of playing cards at some point during their adventures, to everyone’s delight and Coran’s borderline obsessive interest (Keith never would have guessed the altean was so into gaming).  Keith had feigned indifference at the time, but had later stashed them in his belt bag in the hopes of playing a game with Shiro. 

 

He patted his belt to make sure the cards were still there, and the thought of a smile passed over his face.  Shiro and Adam used to keep a deck in their lounge at the garrison. It gave their hands something to do while the three of them laughed and talked about nothing important.  More quietly but no less memorably, the cards reminded him of dark nights in the desert, a gently lit kitchen and the silent flutter of a moth that had made its way through the single hole in the screen door.  

 

Geometric grooves made their way across the polished hallway floor as Keith approached a corner, and he frowned at them.  Slav had been distraught when he discovered that such a technologically advanced race as the Alteans had left so many cracks in their flooring,  _ and therefore their logic  _ (Allura had needed a few minutes alone in the hallway after that particular episode).

 

Keith adjusted his footing slightly at the thought, took aim, 

 

> **and stepped on the crack** (Jump to Chapter 9)

> **and stepped over the crack** (Jump to Chapter 19)


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Public Service Announcement:  
> The following contains a lot of the real feelings and stuff. While they may speak to something different in your case, for me it's specific to being aro/ace. I personally actually like myself quite a lot, but I still wonder these things sometimes, you know?  
> The point is, be careful reading this if you are sensitive about self worth.  
> That is all.

Time forced his hand.  In a final, desperate attempt to connect the cables, he clamped the left end over his right wrist and pressed his right thumb over the exposed tip of the back cable.

 

“NOW!”

 

Keith arched his back, trying to minimize his contact with the floor.  Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, the energy behaved very much like electricity, surging out one wire, through his hand, and back into the other end.

 

Mostly.

 

It felt like his arm was stuck in a massage chair with the vibration setting turned all the way up, only the massage chair was on fire and was also melting his bones and he _couldn’t let go_ and some of the fire was actually a white hot wire that was twisting through his arm and he couldn’t even scream because his muscles had seized up and all he could really focus on was how bad bad bad awful pain fire until he couldn’t even focus on that anymore and everything went black.

 

-o-o-o-o-o-

 

Keith had always been a light sleeper, but he could still ignore noise in favor of sleep.  It was the subtle shift of a door opening, the silent stirring of someone passing by, the wind tugging air from one open window to that in the next room that would wake Keith in the middle of the night.  

 

It was the change in air pressure, the vague sense of a door opening in front of him, that pulled him into consciousness.  He hadn’t had a chance to do more than twitch a little before something was tugging him roughly forward by the waist, causing him to stumble.  He flailed a little and ended up smacking himself in the face.

 

“You’re an idiot!” a familiar voice hissed from where it had latched onto his front.

 

“Pidge?” he croaked, voice rough from disuse.

 

A head nodded against his chest, and he patted the head after a moment, not sure about where to put his hands.  

 

Speaking of which, his hands felt oddly weak.  He flexed them experimentally.

And then he remembered.

 

“Did it work?”  He managed after a moment, looking up to find everyone else surrounding him.  Pidge stiffened, the air shifted, and he had the distinct impression that he had said the wrong thing.

 

“Quiznack, Keith.”  Lance muttered from the side.

 

“To answer your question,”  Coran chimed in, “Yes, it worked.  We were able to reverse the spatial anomalies.”

 

“Well, that’s--- good?”  He offered.

 

Hunk stepped forward with a sob and picked Keith and Pidge up in a giant bear hug, lifting them from the ground.  “You scared us to death, Keith! Don’t do that again!”

 

“That was a very rash thing to do, number four.”  Coran continued. “It is extremely difficult to defibrillate someone who is stuck beneath a console.  We almost had to remove your hand.”

 

Keith felt the blood drain from his face.  It was a good thing Hunk still had a hold of him, because his legs had started feeling kind of rubbery.

 

“Thankfully, the cryo replenisher is able to renature proteins, and even encourage regrowth based off of your genetic code to a small degree, so there shouldn’t be any lasting consequences.”

 

Keith flexed his hands again, swallowing.  “My hands, they feel weird.”

 

Coran tutted.  “Of course they do!  You wouldn’t expect a newborn to have the grip strength of a mature adult, would you?”

 

“It was bad, Keith.”  Pidge looked up. “Your hands were ruined, on top of--- everything else.”

 

Hunk made a noise and hastily set them back down.

 

Keith flexed his hands again, staring as they shook gently from the effort.

 

Shiro strode forward, resting a hand on his shoulder, and Allura smiled briefly at Keith before turning away.  “We will give Keith some time to change. The rest of us will be in the Kitchen, waiting.”

 

Everyone shuffled away, leaving Keith and Shiro, who hadn’t moved.  

 

“You know that you’re important to us, right?  And not just as a paladin.” Shiro didn’t make eye contact, staring instead at the closed door of the med bay.

 

“I didn’t know what else to do.”  Keith deflected, voice flat.

 

“I know,”  Shiro paused, deliberating.  “Just--- be careful. When you have to decide to ante up or up the ante.”

 

“I’d do it again.”  The words staggered up and out of Keith’s mouth without his permission.  Shiro was silent, so Keith continued. He was tired enough that he didn’t care as much as he knew he usually would about Shiro using the silence to make him talk.

 

“I---I never thought I could be a part of something like this.  Something worthwhile. There’s so much that’s wrong with me, Shiro.”  His mouth twisted bitterly. “Religiously, scientifically, socially, they all say something’s wrong, that I’m wrong.  A dead end. What is even the point of me? But Voltron, Voltron has a purpose. Voltron defends the universe, and everything in it.  All the things that _do_ have a purpose.”  He flexed his hands again.  “And I would do it again. I would.  I’d do anything to protect them. That’s the point of me.”

 

Neither of them moved.  The silence grew heavy under the weight of his words, and Keith shifted uncomfortably, arms folded.  He couldn’t decide if it would be better or worse for Shiro to say something at this point.

 

“I’ve failed you,”  Shiro ventured carefully.  “If you really think that this is your only purpose here, we’ve all failed you, as friends.”  Keith tried to protest, but Shiro pushed on. “We’re going to work on this, Keith. You’re so much more than some, some throwaway pawn.  You’re part of voltron too, you know.”

 

“I know that, and I would never give that up if I didn’t believe it was the only way.”

 

Shiro looked at him, and opened his mouth as though to say something further, before closing it again.

 

Keith’s stomach interrupted loudly.

 

Keith glared down balefully, and Shiro quirked an eyebrow.  He tried and failed to conceal the matching quirk to his mouth, which earned the same from Keith.  Just like that, most of the strained energy that had been building up disappeared like so much smoke.

 

“We can---we _will_ talk more later, but I think we’re supposed to be meeting everyone in the kitchen right about now.”  Shiro grabbed a pile of clothes from the table and tossed them to Keith before heading towards the exit. He stopped at the door.  “I think you’ll find that they were more worried about you than the spatial distortions.”

 

Keith waved him away, his hands fumbling and clumsy as he stripped out of the cryo suit and pulled his day clothes on.  

 

Things weren’t perfect; they never were. But maybe, with these people, he could find a reason to live for himself, too.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Open Ending
> 
> (Yeah, if this ending feels unsatisfactory, it’s because I don't know how to write the answers when I haven’t figured them out myself, so I sorta just left it open I guess. Now enjoy some super positive power metal lyrics!)
> 
>  
> 
> _A star shines in all of us, we'll search for all our lives_  
>  _One day we'll find a way, and a reason to survive_  
>  _Cry for the day to return, life no one can understand_  
>  _We all face our fears in the world_  
>  _We all hold our place in the universe_  
>  _For eternity_
> 
> -DragonForce


	16. Chapter 16

The other eye followed suit, sealing the deal with a trickle that glimmered quietly in the light of the movie.  Escape was the only option left for his dignity.

 

Keith stood as casually as he could and turned, climbing over the back of the couch before making a beeline for the exit.  

 

At least, that’s what he tried to do.  

 

Having half a Hunk on top of you did not make for a quick or smooth exit.  To make things better ( _see: worse_ ), disturbing Hunk’s position was the beginning of a chain reaction that had Lance grumbling and Pidge starting out of her doze.  Keith's struggle intensified at the increased odds of impending discovery, which, unfortunately, increased his odds of impending discovery.

 

“Wait, Keith, dude, are you ok?”

 

Yup.  This was how he died.

 

“Everything. Is. Great.”  He growled through his teeth, daring anyone else to question him.

 

Emotions weren’t supposed to spill everywhere like this.  It was messy and uncomfortable. He liked it better when they were packaged in neat little bottles that he could shove into a cellar and forget about for twenty years.

 

He made an attempt to untangle his legs from the blanket, but it was on and around and beneath too many people.  He was found out. There was no coming back from this.

 

“I pooped myself once at the Garrison testing center.”  Lance’s voice cut above the movie.

 

Everyone went extremely still.  Pidge swiveled her head to look at Lance, who stared straight ahead at nothing, face highlighted as the colors switched on the holoscreen.  “Yup. The public testing center. I went to the bathroom beforehand and everything, but a lot can change in three hours, you know?”

 

“What did you do?”  Pidge stared up at him in awe.  Keith sank carefully back down into his Hunk burrow, wiping quickly at his eyes.

 

“I figured I had two choices.  I could stay, finish the test, and ruin everyone else's testing experience.  Or,” he waved a finger, “I could keep a low profile, leave, and beg for mercy later.” Lance’s voice wavered with suppressed mirth.   “I decided to be the bigger person and leave, obviously.”

 

Hunk snorted, and a giggle worked its way out of Pidge.  Even Keith grinned from halfway beneath Hunks arm.

 

“Worst email I ever had to write.”  Lance added, earning another round of laughter.

 

“I threw up once in the third grade.”  Hunk offered. “It was valentines day, and I’d just finished a blue raspberry sucker, so it was bright blue.”

 

“Nice.”

 

“You throw up all the time, Hunk.”

 

“Only when you’re driving, Lance.  And just because it happens a lot doesn’t make it less embarrassing.”

 

Shiro leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees.

 

“I was trying to impress Adam’s family by making cookies for a dinner once.  They were perfect in every way, my magnum opus,” Shiro sighed, “except that they were pretty flat, and I accidentally mixed up the salt and sugar.”  He shook his head, eyes dead. “They never let me live that one down.”

 

Keith laughed as he recalled the incident.  Shiro had been devastated for days after that happened, until time and distance had smoothed out the sharp edges into something beautiful.

 

“I once stopped halfway through my piece at a music recital.”  Allura joined, catching everyone's attention. “When I was younger, I would get stage fright in front of large crowds.”  

 

“You?”  Lance cocked a disbelieving eyebrow, and Pidge elbowed him in the stomach.

 

“Yes, me.  I made the mistake of wearing heeled shoes, and my legs were shaking rather badly, so much that it was ruining my performance.”  She smiled at the memory. “I was so frustrated that I stopped, sat down center stage, and removed the shoes. You should have seen the face of the accompanist!”  She fiddled with a strand of her hair. “I stood up and began again where I left off. The accompanist joined me, and everyone cheered.”

 

Hunk sighed in relief, and Pidge fist pumped the air.

 

“After that, the stage fright was almost bearable.”

 

Pidge hummed, rolling over to grab another cookie, which she proceeded to examine from every angle.  “I know Lance already took all the glory for bodily functions and tests,” Lance puffed his chest out proudly, “but I was taking a math test once in a dead silent classroom and I, ah, experienced some flatulence.  And I wasn’t expecting it, so I scared myself and jumped really bad when it happened.”

 

Lance threw his head back against the couch, and everyone laughed along with Pidge, who was increasingly red at the admission.  “You!-- you made-- you startled yourself?!” Lance was gasping at this point, which only served to feed everyone else’s laughter.

 

Shiro bumped his leg a moment later, and Keith was greeted by a knowing smile, eyes crinkled just so in the corners.  They’d all come a long way, his smile seemed to say. Regularly getting thrown into life-or-death situations had built something between them all, leaving Keith reeling as the mistrust was pulled out from under his feet over and over again.  His eyes prickled as he realized that they trusted him back, enough to share these things with him, to make him feel more comfortable at his most vulnerable. Even if it was over a stupid flower.

 

It was almost more than he could handle.  

 

So later that night, after long yawns and sleepy good-nights, he took those feelings and tucked them carefully away.  

 

Not in a bottle in the cellar, but under the pillow, next to his knife.

 

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Happy Ending
> 
> All true stories.  
> I have died inside so many times that I lost count.  
> The poop story though, that was (ironically) during a test for a food microbiology class, so the professor was particularly understanding when it came to, ah, bacteria related maladies of the gastrointestinal variety.


	17. Chapter 17

Keith didn’t trust easily.  People always had an ulterior motive, always wanted _something_ from him, and while some of them may have meant well, he was always left empty and disappointed in the end.  No, Keith didn’t trust easily, with a few important exceptions.

One of those exceptions happened to be himself.

 

The wires fell apart in slow motion, electricity arcing between the two in a wavering bridge of light before parting, multicolored sparks spitting at his gloved hands as they continued to fall. The world turned blue, and Keith caught the tail end of a knowing smile from Other Keith before he flickered out of existence.

 

“Six hundred and seven terahertz?!?”  Slav shrieked, typing with four of his hands now.  “This changes everything! Grab the controls! Quickly!”  Keith shook himself and ran for the center of the room, the crystal hanging far above.  Part of the control panel was accessible, wavering in and out of view within the fluctuating anomaly.  He hadn’t ever had the chance to interact with the ships controls, but he stuck his hands in anyway, desperately trying to mimic the way he remembered Coran pulling back on the controls.  

 

The ship groaned long and loud before it began inching away, the walls of energy sliding slowly through the hull.  One brushed Keith’s arm from behind, and he shuddered as it slipped partway through and then past him, leaving a crackling feeling where it had touched.

 

“That’s right, you’d better run!”  Lance’s voice filled the room, startling Keith, who jerked the entire ship sideways in surprise, causing everyone to stagger.

 

Lance was wearing a brown robe, bayard rifle held high above his head in a pose reminiscent of an angry tuscan raider.  Allura shook her head fondly as the ship came into focus around the two.

 

Keith sighed in relief, and Lance let out another whoop as everything came to a full stop, energy field free.  

The danger, however, was not past.

 

“You got lucky!”  Slav kicked at Keith’s shin. Keith yelped, hopping away from the onslaught of multiple angry limbs.  “Never. Do. That. Again!”

 

Keith scowled at the little green ball of rage, retreating over a crack on the floor.  Slav glared back, angry, but unwilling to risk traversing the valley of the shadow of death for revenge.

 

Lance strode up to the two, bayard slung casually over his shoulder.  “And what have the two of you been up to while I was off saving the princess, hmmm?”  

 

Allura eyed the sparking wall panel before walking up to the controls.  The space mice dropped down from somewhere on the ceiling, landing in her hair with a greeting.

 

“Throwing all logic to the wind!”

 

“Nothing at all, Lance.”  Keith muttered, still locked in a glaring contest with Slav.

 

“Well, would you believe me if I told you that I single handedly rescued the princess by sneaking into a cult of crazed mind readers?  Because I did.” He dismissed his bayard, hooking it to his belt loop. “Turns out they can’t hear your mind if you think of _absolutely nothing_ while you sneak past them.”

 

“Must have been easy for you.”

 

“Of course it was easy fo--- hey!”  Lance joined Slav in glaring at Keith.

 

“Coran.  Paladins.  Can any of you hear me?”  Allura called over the intercom, distracting the other two long enough for Keith to slink away.

 

“We’re all accounted for here!”  Coran’s voice chirped back. Hunk moaned in the background, Pidge squawking frantically as the moan turned into a wet slapping sound.  Apparently Hunk hadn’t taken very well to Keith’s piloting.

 

“Great job, everyone.”  Shiro radiated pride through the intercom.  

 

Keith leaned carefully against the wall.  He rubbed at his arm, which still tingled, and thought back to Other Keith.  It was a weird day he really could have done without.

 

If nothing else, though, Keith was glad that he could trust himself.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Trust Fall Ending


	18. Chapter 18

A chill passed over him.

 

Rapid footsteps approached, and he kinked his neck as he whipped up to see Shiro.

 

“Shiro!”

 

“Paladins,”  Coran’s voice buzzed in the background, unheeded.  “There---fortunate-- --t---teluda---- -- -” 

 

“Shiro, go back!  Go back!” Keith shouted, already running to meet him halfway.  

 

Shiro barely blinked as he turned instantly to run back the other way.  “What’s happening?” He slowed to sprint in line with Keith.

 

“I don’t know!  Just run!” Keith gasped between breaths.  

 

The ship jerked to the side, and the hallway began collapsing around them.

 

Keith's world began to fall apart again.

 

A hand grabbed him and tugged him sideways, narrowly avoiding the ceiling as it crashed down.

 

“Woah.”  Shiro’s voice was muffled and quiet after all the noise.

 

Keith almost let out a sigh of relief when something cracked sharply behind him, ears popping as the air pressure in the room dropped.

 

He turned, lunging for Shiro, eyes wide as a crack snaked its way through the glass of the airlock window.   _ The airlock _ , Keith realized.   _ They were in the airlock _ .   A loud hissing sound filled the room, and the two were pulled toward the breach like so many leaves in the wind.

 

Shiro cried out as his back slammed against the crack, suctioning him to the wall.  

 

Keith could only watch as Shiro writhed in agony.  It was a small crack, but against the enormous vacuum of space, human flesh didn’t stand a chance.  Space wanted to equalize the pressure between the room and the rest of the universe, and it was going to take Shiro with it, through the crack, piece by agonizing piece.

 

Keith didn’t hesitate for a second as he punched the emergency release and dove for Shiro.

 

He felt an arm snap as he hit the wall on his way out, spinning spinning spinning through the darkness.  

 

They were going to die.

 

But he had Shiro.  Somehow, he’d held on to Shiro.

 

They were going to die.

 

Keith finally looked away, freezing and burning and breathless.  The dark silence of infinite space was interrupted by huge swathes of auroral energy, dotted with asteroids, the Castleship stuck in the epicenter like a fly in a web.  One of the energy walls wavered gently to their left. His swollen hand grasped tightly at Shiro.

 

They were going to die.

 

Unless--- if he aimed just right, he could use his legs to launch himself and Shiro apart.  The momentum might be enough to get one of them into the energy field.

 

One of them.

 

He had to choose now, before they drifted too far.

 

He positioned himself, legs poised like a spring, waiting for their momentum to spin them into position,

 

> **and launched Shiro toward the wall.**  (Jump to Chapter 4)

> **and launched himself toward the wall.** (Jump to Chapter 25)


	19. Chapter 19

Keith, though aiming to miss, nearly stepped on the crack anyway as alarms blared through the hallways, amplified by the emptiness of the corridor.  His heart jumped into double time, and he stopped, half turned as Shiro came sprinting towards him.

 

“Paladins,”  Coran’s voice crackled over the intercom moments later, “There was, ah, an unfortunate incident with the teludav.”  Pidge said something in the background, her exact words lost in a sharp hum. “Several anomalies appear to be fluctuating in the space around the ship, but if we back it up niiice and slow, we should be able to extricate ourselves from the current situation easy as bonsai!”   _ Pie _ , Hunks voice came into range momentarily.  “Allura, can you pull us out?”

 

Shiro came to a halt next to Keith, and they stood, waiting for more information.

 

“Hello?  Slav? AllurAAAH--!?” 

 

The word ended in a yelp before the speakers cut out, leaving them alone with the alarm.

 

“Keith.”

 

Keith turned to Shiro, brow furrowed.

 

“It sounds like they need help down there, but I’m worried about Allura.”

 

Keith nodded in agreement.  “I’ll---

 

> \-- **go help with the teludav.”**  (Jump to Chapter 11)

> \-- **check on Allura.”**  (Jump to Chapter 24)


	20. Chapter 20

A chill passed over him.

 

Rapid footsteps approached.  Keith turned away, and he ran.

 

“Keith!”

 

“Paladins,”  Coran’s voice crackled away, unheeded.

 

Keith continued to run.  If they were going to make it, Shiro had to keep running.  

 

“There---fortunate-- --t---teluda----  -- -”

 

“Run!”  He screamed, and run they did.  Shiro stumbled as gravity shifted, but Keith was ready this time, a steady support at his side, and it barely took a tick before they were back to full speed.  

 

Keith dared to hope as he heard the hallway begin to give.  They were so much closer this time. So close! He reached out, grabbed Shiro’s arm as they approached the stairwell, and swung both of them into the opening.  

 

They landed in a tangled heap, with seconds to spare before the ceiling crashed into the floor.  

 

Keith almost didn’t believe it, but Shiro was here.  They were both here. He leaned his head back against the wall-turned-floor and closed his eyes.

 

“What just happened?”  Shiro pulled himself up from the floor, looking around in confusion.  

 

Keith opened his mouth, and then closed it.  He didn’t know where to start.

 

“What is _that_?”

 

Keith’s head shot up.  The glowing wall had made another appearance, crawling towards them across the floor.  

 

“Don’t touch it!”  Keith warned, and they scooted up the wall.  It continued to slide by on it’s journey, slipping away through the next wall without a trace of it’s passing.

 

Keith breathed out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, and rested his forehead against the heel of his palm.

 

“What’s going on?”  Shiro tried again.

 

“I don’t know exactly, but I’ve-- we’ve, been stuck in a time loop.  It has something to do with that light.”

 

“Are you ok?”  Shiro leaned in closer, scrutinizing Keith as he sat hunched on the floor. He rested his flesh hand on Keith’s shoulder and squeezed gently.

 

Keith asked himself the same question, and found that he was not, in fact, ok.  Not really. “You died, Shiro. You died again and again.”

 

Tangled emotions boiled back up inside of him, leaving him breathless, but he swallowed them back down again.  There would be time to sort through them later, to desperately hold and examine each and every one of them in all of their intensity until they burned out all of the places that they touched, so that he no longer had to feel.  But not now.

 

Shiro’s hand tightened momentarily.  The silence stretched, and Shiro broke it, his voice much smaller than Keith had ever heard.  

 

“How many times did you have to come back for me?”

 

Keith met his eyes.   He even managed to smile, a tiny soft thing.

 

“It doesn’t matter.  I’ll always come back for you.”

 

_As many times as it takes._

 

 

_._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The As Many Times As It Takes Ending


	21. Chapter 21

Keith thought of Slav’s warning and chose the black socks.  He’d grown up in Arizona for the most part, half of the time in towns where every other shop was a crystal seller, aura reader, or fortune teller of some flavor.  On top of that, he’d spent a year following weird impressions that had ended up being actually true when they led him to both Shiro and the Blue Lion (with a little help).  

 

So sue him if he was a little superstitious about his sock color today.

 

He showered, efficient as always, and towelled his hair dry, finger combing as he left the bathroom.  His hand snagged somewhere halfway through his hair, and he winced. He kept meaning to ask for a comb, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet.  Priorities and all.

 

He huffed in mild irritation, trudging over to the laundry chute to dump his sweaty clothes.  Patting his belt and finding everything accounted for, he made his way towards the lounge. 

 

Maybe he could badger Shiro into playing a card game instead of working on Important Things™.  Lance had magically produced a set of playing cards at some point during their adventures, to everyone’s delight and Coran’s borderline obsessive interest (Keith never would have guessed the altean was so into gaming).  Keith had feigned indifference at the time, but had later stashed them in his belt bag in the hopes of playing a game with Shiro. 

 

He was halfway through his next thought when Pidge popped out of the elevator next to him with a very stereotypically elevator-esque ding.  “Oh hey, Keith. How was the training deck?”

 

“Like a breath of fresh air.”  He replied.

 

Pidge snorted.  “Maybe for you.”

 

“100% of the time, in all realities.”  Keith smirked, earning a groan in response.  They began walking down the hall.

 

“Honestly though, Slav is a genius.  Once you sort through the rest of the package, anyway.”  Pidge tucked her tablet away under her arm. “He made Hunk re-tie his headband into a square knot before he would let us install the new teludav capacitor earlier.  Five times, Keith.  _ Five _ .”

 

“What was different the fifth time?”

 

“Who knows.”   Pidge shook her head, and then paused slightly, a wicked grin growing slowly across her face as she glanced at the flooring to their side.  

 

“I dare you to step on that crack.”

 

“Why would I do that?”  

 

“Because I dared you?”

 

“Nope.”  Keith continued walking.  Pidge, who had much shorter strides, had to do double time to catch up.

 

“I double dog dare you.”

 

“What does that even mean--?”

 

“I triple dog dare you.”

 

Keith paused.  That sounded pretty serious.

 

He deliberated.  And then--

  
  


> **\--he stepped on the crack.** (Jump to Chapter 5)

> **\--he kept walking.** (Jump to Chapter 44)


	22. Chapter 22

NOT SURE HOW YOU GOT HERE BUT THIS IS A FILLER FOR A FUTURE CHAPTER SO THERE'S NOTHING TO SEE 

MOVE ALONG


	23. Chapter 23

An hour later found everyone in a circle on the floor, snacks forgotten.

 

“One!”  

 

“Try it again.  Say UUUEW.”

 

“Uuuew.”

 

“Now say NO.”

 

“No.”

 

Allura had joined them, and had quickly proven herself to be a formidable opponent.

 

“Now try saying them together again.  Uno”

 

“One.  That’s what I’ve been saying!”

 

They had found the singular loophole in whatever universal translator the Alteans used, and Pidge was having a little bit too much fun with it.

 

Allura had shown up at some point, and Coran had caught wind that they were playing games and appeared soon after.  Currently he was taking notes on all the different earth card games they were playing through.

 

“Why does Uno translate like that?”

 

“That’s a tricky one, number five!”  Coran piped up, “The translator does it’s best to translate the speaker's intended meaning, yes, but it also translates using all of the recipients understanding of the word.  Perhaps there is more than one way to say One?”

 

“Oh.”  Pidge whipped around at Lance, who recoiled.  “Lance, stop thinking about Uno like a number.  Focus reeeeally hard on it just being the name of the game.”

 

Lance scrunched up his eyes dramatically in concentration.

 

“Now say it again, Allura.”

 

“Uno.”

 

“Yeeeah!”  Pidge cheered, waving her hand around.

 

Lance took note of her hand.  “Keith, buddy, I’m gonna need you to use your reverse.”

 

Pidge squawked.  “Cheater!”

 

“Not my fault you keep waving your cards in my face.”

 

“Shiro, Lance is cheating!”

 

Shiro shrugged, a sly grin on his face.  “Keeping your hand close is part of the game.”  

Pidge sulked, hunching over her cards carefully.

 

Keith did not use his reverse, Shiro pulled a draw four on Pidge, and Allura ended up winning on the next round, to no one’s surprise.  

 

“It’s fascinating that you have so many different games that can be played with the same deck of cards.”  Coran mused, typing another note on his datapad. “Your species is very resourceful.”

 

Shiro cracked his neck and leaned back against the couch with a sigh while Keith shuffled everyones cards back into the deck.  

 

“Let’s teach them Rummy next!”  

 

Shiro raised an eyebrow at Keith, who smirked back.  He kicked butt at Rummy.

 

-o-o-o-o-o-

 

They were up well past their usual bedtime, partially because they were enjoying themselves, and partially because Coran kept asking for more card game demonstrations.  They’d eventually stopped playing, but continued to lounge around, chatting idly while Hunk attempted to construct a card tower for Coran.

 

“It makes so much sense,”  Lance was saying, laying on the floor with his feet propped up on the couch.  “Hunk is the guardian of land and stuff, so of course he would have a rock girlfriend.”

 

“Uuuugh,”  Hunk misplaced a card, causing the tower to fall, to Coran’s dismay. “We already had this conversation.  She is not my girlfriend!”

 

“I’m just saying.”  Lance replied. Hunk pouted.

 

“How about you, Allura?  Any secret crushes?” Pidge asked sweetly, basking in the warm glow of Lance’s death glare.

 

Allura smiled gently, oblivious to the exchange.  “I haven’t really had the time to be distracted by such things lately.”  Allura looked around, and the smile fell slightly. “There was someone before, but they’re ten thousand years gone.”

 

Pidge froze, realizing her mistake too late.  

 

“How about you, Pidge?  Any secret crushes?” Lance parroted.

 

Pidge took it in stride.  “There was a boy in the third grade.”  Lance waggled his eyebrows, and she continued.  “He stood up for me once when some of my classmates were being mean.”

 

“That is. So. Cute.”  Hunk intoned from his pool of cards.

 

Pidge blushed.

 

“Did you tell him?”  Lance leaned forward, conspiratorial.

 

“No way!”  Pidge huffed, turning a darker shade of pink.  “You can’t just straight up tell someone you have a crush on them.   _Can you, Lance_.”

 

Lance recoiled.  “Well, you CAN, but sometimes you just gotta wait for the right moment.”  He examined his cuticles.

 

“I had someone, back on Earth.”  Shiro offered, redirecting the conversation, “We didn’t really part on the best of terms, though.”  He paused, flexing his mechanical hand. Lance was drinking in every word, and Shiro laughed sheepishly at the attention.  “Maybe when we’re done here I can try to get it all sorted out.”

 

Keith had known that something was up between the two, but Shiro never offered an explanation to the sudden distance, and Keith hadn’t felt that it was his place to pry.

 

“What about you, Keith?”  Hunk asked as he started back up on his card tower.  It was a casual question, one that he probably should have seen coming, but it surprised him anyway.

 

He cleared his throat.  “Um, no. No crushes.”

 

“Oh come on, man,”  Lance sat up, propping his chin on his palm.  “Everyone has crushes. You can tell us.”

 

Keith folded his arms and shook his head.  “I don’t--- look at people like that?” He struggled for the right words.  He’d never really had to explain it much before. Shiro had told him there were labels for that, but he clearly hadn’t cared enough to remember them.  “I’m generally disinterested?”

 

Lance stood up, eyes widening by the second.  “You mean, this whole time---” his eyes shone, brimming with enlightenment, voice choked with glee, “This whole time, Voltron has had--- an ace up it’s sleeve?”

 

A beat of silence passed before Keith gently rested his forehead in his palm.  Pidge groaned, and Hunk knocked over his card tower with a “yeeeah!” on his way to a high five.

 

Allura looked around, confused.  “Is that another earth idiom?” Coran perked up at that, looking between Keith and Shiro for an explanation.

 

“An idiom turned pun.”  Shiro replied, trying and failing to hide a grin as he turned to explain to the alteans.  

 

“Dude, so do you just not get the hots for people, or are you, like, no-romo too?”  Hunk sat back down, sliding his pile of cards back into the box.

 

Keith shrugged.  “I don’t know? It all seems like a lot of effort.”

 

“He likes hugs.”  Shiro interjected. “Once he’s sure that’s all you want.”

 

The absolute traitor.  Keith glared at the man he had called a brother, shrinking back as the other three paladins turned on him as one.

 

“Keith pile!”  Hunk cheered, and they charged.

 

Keith felt like he was dying.  Whether it was from being crushed under a paladin pile, embarrassment, or something else entirely, he wasn’t sure.  Whatever it was, he decided as he hid his reddening face and struggled to breathe, it wasn’t the worst way to go.

 

Not at all.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Ace up my Sleeve Ending


	24. Chapter 24

Shiro nodded back, before squinting slightly at Keith.  “Did you choose that just because Slav is on the bridge?”

 

Keith shrugged with his mouth.

 

“Whatever.  Just, be careful, ok?”  Shiro, who was not one to look a gift horse directly in the mouth, turned and began jogging toward the emergency stairway.  

 

“Sounds like a plan.”

 

Keith ran for the stairs leading to the bridge, legs burning already from the training they’d endured earlier.  He pushed on past the elevator, half considering it before continuing forward with a curse. No one fully appreciates elevators until they are no longer an option.

 

He heard the bridge before he saw it, or more precisely, he heard Lance, who was on the bridge.  

 

“Keith!”  Lance shouted, voice cracking at the top in the way only Lance’s voice could.  “Allura is in trouble!” 

 

The bridge was split neatly into quarters by a semitransparent wall that wobbled soundlessly back and forth, not entirely unlike looking at the sky from underwater.  Slav clung to the back of a chair, screaming, and Lance scrubbed his hair frantically as the walls shifted back and forth.

 

“Where is Allura!?”  Keith yelled, grabbing for a wall as the ship lurched beneath them.

 

“She’s behind this wall!”  Lance waved his hands wildly for emphasis, “It appeared out of nowhere and swallowed her!”

 

“You need to go after her!”  Slav nearly toppled from the chair as the ship moved again.  “Extra variables in her favor can only help, and the sooner we get her back, the greater our statistical likelihood of survival!”

 

“We can just walk through that thing safely?”  Lance’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline.

 

“Probably!”  Slav shrugged with two arms.

 

“What about you?”  Keith called at Slav, who was moaning to himself.

 

Slav whipped his head around, locating a panel on the wall, and slowly skirted the perimeter of the room to approach the panel without crossing any cracks.  “I will see if there is a way to get this ship moving without the princess!” The ground tilted, and Slav screamed as he nearly slid over a small groove in the tiling.

 

Lance set his jaw, turned, and charged through the wall of energy without another word. 

 

Slav stood on his tip toes, using his second pair of arms to try to boost himself closer to the wall panel.

 

Keith stood in the middle, undecided.

 

> **Follow Lance**  (Jump to Chapter 41)

> **Help Slav**  (Jump to Chapter 3)


	25. Chapter 25

If he could just start over, this wouldn’t have to happen to Shiro in the first place.  That’s what he told himself as he drifted toward the light, as his vision faded to white around the edges, as his body screamed at him in ways he had never imagined.  

 

He couldn’t bring himself to look back at Shiro.

 

The light engulfed him as he lost consciousness.

 

> **Jump to Chapter 20**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost as short as OG Pidge.


	26. Chapter 26

The lounge doors slid open, revealing a pile of blankets, pillows, and various games that Lance had probably borrowed from Coran, all stacked around that circular dip in the floor.  You know the one.

 

Shiro was sitting off to one side, and Lance’s head popped up from within a pile of blankets.  

 

“We come bearing gifts.”  Hunk announced to the room at large, walking around and down the steps leading to the recess in the floor.  Pidge walked straight up to the dip and slid down over the back of the couch, coming to a rest on top of Lance’s blanket pile.

 

“Oof, Pidge, you’re smothering me.”

 

“Don’t bump me.  You’ll make me spill the space cookies.”

 

“Piiiidge!” 

 

Keith set his bowl on the floor and slid down the couch next to Shiro.  

 

Lance wormed his upper body out of the blanket pile, stopping once he could breathe freely.  “You guys wanna play games or watch a movie or what? Shiro and I kind of just grabbed everything we could think of.”

 

“Movie!”  Hunk called at the same time Pidge cried “Games!”  They stared at each other for a second before looking around to everyone else.  

 

Lance shrugged horizontally.  “I wanted to try some of these space games.”  

Pidge gave him a high five.

 

“What about you, Shiro?” Keith asked.

 

“Allura recommended one of her favorite movies to me the other day.”  He reached towards a pile of datachips and pulled one off the top. “She described it as a sort of melodrama.”

 

“Aaand it’s a draw.”  Lance shot his finger guns at the ceiling.  “How about it, Keith?”

 

All four pairs of eyes turned to Keith, who folded his arms at the attention.  

 

> **Movie.** (Jump to Chapter 45)

> **Games.** (Jump to Chapter 32)


	27. Chapter 27

“Pidge!”  Keith cried, grabbing her arm in the arc of his spin and yanking her along as he swung to shield Lance.  Fortunately, he succeeded in pulling her out of the way of the beam aimed at her back and managed to simultaneously block the shots aimed at Lance.  

 

Less fortunately, he pulled her through the line of fire that had been directed at his own back.

 

Her pained cry sparked something bright and sharp inside him, and the only thing that held him back from charging straight into the horde was the equally insistent urge to  _ protect protect protect _ screaming in the back of his mind.  

 

“Pidge!”  Lance quickly closed in so that she was between them, and Pidge staggered back to her feet to lean against the wall.

 

Keith wanted nothing more than to check on her, but the sentries continued their rain of fire, effectively pinning the trio.  He shouted in frustration, teeth bared.

 

“I can’t shoot all of them and shield at the same time!”  Lance yelled, voice shaking. “What should we do?!”

 

Keith tried to reason through their options, but there was too much happening, too much at stake.  He scrabbled for any scrap of an idea, a plan, anything, but each time he tried to follow a thought, he would lose track of the thread in the tangled mess of his panic.  Only one thing was certain; he wouldn’t leave Pidge open, not again. 

 

Thought wasn’t an option, which left Keith with two conflicting impulses.

 

Continue to shield until another option presented itself, or try to make a run for it before the sentries converged in the hallway.

 

> **Continue to shield.** (Jump to Chapter 6)

> **Run for it.** (Jump to Chapter 10)


	28. Chapter 28

THIS IS A FILLER

GO BACK TO WHEREVER YOU CAME FROM

THX


	29. Chapter 29

Keith winced, guilt flooding through him as he held the wires tightly and looked away.  As much as he wanted to trust himself, Slav was renowned for his ability to predict realities, and that was the only certainty he had in this situation.  

 

“And there we go!”  Slav shouted, triumphant. The ship shuddered again, before it began to slide backwards and away from the anomaly.  Keith looked again towards the Other Keith, who’s eyes lit up with realization and horror.

 

“No!”  Other Keith cried, voice cracking, and his struggle intensified.  The wall of energy bent forward, swallowing him inch by inch as it receded.  He reached toward Keith in a last desperate effort, waving his hand to the side as though to gesture Keith away.  “Move! Mo--”

 

Keith very nearly did, but before he could make the choice, he was swallowed by one last straggling spatial distortion as it passed through the wall behind him.  Other Keith disappeared into his distortion at the same moment Keith did, along with the bridge and Slav.

 

His whole body tingled with pins and needles that came in erratic waves.  He spun around in confusion, the whole world a tilting, wobbling mess of color and sound.  He found that he couldn’t breath, which quickly reduced him into a panic. Some of the waves billowed in close, and through them he could see distorted figures.  He couldn’t breathe. A ginger moustache magnified to the size of a house before it was replaced by hundreds of copies of the space mice. He couldn’t breathe. The golden eyes of a lion in a darkened hangar.  Couldn’t breathe couldn’t breathe couldn’t breath coulDN’T BREATHE. Another segment wobbled incredibly close, and he stumbled towards it, gaping like a fish in the airless space.

He pressed himself into the wall as hard as he could.  

 

It was like fighting against a river of solidifying super glue.  His vision was beginning to white out around the edges when he finally broke through enough to take several heaving breaths of sweet, sweet air.  And when he looked up, he found himself face to face with--- himself.

 

Standing by the wall.

 

Holding two wires.

 

“Let go of the wires!”  He gasped, pushing forward with all his might.  If he would just let go of the wires, the ship wouldn’t move, he wouldn’t get stuck---

 

Slav swore, or at least it sounded like a swear.  “Don’t do it! That will decrease our chances of escape by 88.3 percent!”

 

Other Keith glanced worriedly between them as he held the wires, and Keith shouted as he struggled to pull himself forward while the energy field doubled in its efforts to pull him back into an airless grave.  “LET THEM GO!” He cried, nearly mindless with fear. “I’m YOU! Trust me!”

 

He had to stop, he had to move, he had to do something, anything!  But to his dismay, the Other Keith looked down. The ship gave a shudder, and began to move.  Other Keith spared one last glance in his direction as he slipped away.

 

And then he saw it.

 

Keith’s throat tightened in horror as the pieces clicked into place.

 

He waved wildly, screamed at himself to move as the ship slid away from him, the stray anomaly surging into view through the wall behind his past self.

 

He couldn’t breathe.

 

He couldn’t breathe

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The I Can't Breathe Ending


	30. Chapter 30

Keith had never been one to sit around and hope for the best, so he charged forward instead.  There was a reason that he had a reputation of being hot headed, after all. Besides, the closer he got to the enemy with his shield, the greater the area of protection behind him.  That’s science. That, and it’s a lot harder to fire a gun when someone is swinging at you with a sword.

 

Keith did just that, barreling into the front lines, bayard swinging before him in an arc.  The sentries were packed in close, unable to back away or maneuver in the hallway as Keith hacked at them.  Each time a gun raised, it was quickly cut down.

 

The floor became cluttered with parts, making it difficult to move forward for either side.  The sentries in back finally got the memo, moving back enough to allow the ones in front to back away, in turn making it more difficult for Keith to keep up his assault.

 

“Keith!  Time to go!”

 

He looked back to see Pidge supporting Lance as they made their way towards the exit, and raised his shield as he fell back.  The sentries began firing again.

 

“The airlock is really, really gonna suck.  Just so you know.” Pidge was saying. Lance bit his lip, nodding.  No one missed how he ignored the opportunity to run with the vacuum joke, but no one pointed it out either.

 

They continued down the hallway as Keith pulled up, the walls around them ringing with the sound of missed shots.  Keith cursed as the sentries began to advance again.

 

“Is there any way we could move a little faster?”  

 

“No dice, buddy.”  Lance gasped out, turning slightly as he continued to move forward.  He quirked an eyebrow and poked Keith with his bayard, hand shaking.

 

“Try this instead.”

 

Keith glanced between the proffered weapon and its owner, unsure.

 

“I don’t exactly practice with guns, you know.”

 

Lance scoffed at that.  “Obviously, but you don’t have to hit them every time.”  He winced. “Just scare them a little, hold them back.”

 

Keith hesitated, then dismissed his own bayard, reaching for the gun.  Did robots get scared?

 

“Do your wild card thing.”  Pidge muttered, half dragging Lance forward despite their height difference.

 

Using the gun one handed around a shield proved to be difficult, but Keith managed to lay down some scattered cover fire, bicep burning as he strained to hold the thing upright.

 

“They are preparing to fire the cannon.”  Allura informed just as they made it through the door to the garbage disposal.  Keith shot the door panel to buy them some time, and then turned to help pull Lance into the airlock, dismissing the bayard.

 

Lance pressed his hands to his side and nodded.

 

Pidge activated the seal, then the door.  They pushed off from the room, and they were greeted by a brief view of several fighter ships chasing the yellow lion before Green’s mouth materialized in front of the trio, swallowing them in one go.

 

“Cannon firing in ten,” this time it was Coran’s voice,

 

“Nine,”

 

Pidge careened for the controls--

 

“Eight.  Seven. Six.”

 

\--and Keith helped Lance into a sitting position.

 

“Five.  Four.”

 

Pidge pulled Green away as fast as she could (which was very fast).

 

“Three.  Two.”

 

“One.”

 

A silent flash of incredibly bright light filled the cockpit, and then it was over.  They sat for a moment in the quiet. Keith was struck by an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

 

“Well.”  Lance sighed.  “That was kind of anticlimactic.”  

 

The déjà vu intensified.

 

“Excellent job, paladins!  All of you!” Allura cheered over the speaker.  Slav was audible somewhere in the background, but no one was really paying attention.

 

“How is Lance?”  Hunk called out, always one to worry about his friend.

 

“He got hurt.”  Keith replied.

 

“THAT!”  Slav cried, having hijacked a microphone somewhere, “THAT in itself is proof that this is the most average day POSSIBLE.”

 

Keith looked up, confused.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”  Lance cried, indignant.

 

Slav huffed.  “It has nothing to do with your skills, blue paladin--”  He paused, “--I think. While all realities should have some chance of coming into being, greater than thirty percent of them, for reasons that I am unable to calculate using logical parameters, involve you getting injured, tortured, emotionally assaulted, or becoming the subject of numberless other forms of distress.  It’s as though something is out to get you, specifically.”

 

Lance breathed sharply, trying not to aggravate his injuries.  “Well that’s not very fair.” It really wasn’t.

 

“Let’s just get Lance to a pod already, yeah?”  Hunk interjected.

 

And so they did.  

 

Keith still felt guilty that his choice had resulted in Lance’s injury, even if it was apparently the average outcome of the universe.  Screw the universe. They had a long talk about it later on, after days of moping, and Keith did eventually get over the guilt, but that is another story that you’ve probably already had the pleasure of reading.

 

They all stood vigil by Lance’s pod, and they all stood to welcome him back as he stumbled from its chilly embrace with the grace of a drunken penguin.  

 

At least, that’s how it went if the other accounts are anything to go by.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Most Average Ending Possible


	31. Chapter 31

Placeholder for another perfectly average ending


	32. Chapter 32

“How about we play some games?”  Keith suggested. Actual interaction was better for the purpose of team building.

 

“Aw yeah!”  Pidge cheered.  Lance made a wheezing sound, Pidge using him as a stepstool to get back over the couch, and she immediately set to sorting through the piles of boxes.  Lance was quick to follow.

 

Keith frowned.

 

“How are you, buddy?”  Hunks voice sounded from his side.  Keith glanced up at Hunk, who had settled down on the couch next to him.

 

Keith gave him a thumbs up, eyes wandering back to Pidge and Lance, who were sitting back to back.  Lance leaned dramatically backwards, forcing Pidge into a hunch as they tried to make heads or tails of the instructions.  She swatted at him wildly.

 

“Nope, nu-uh, we are team building here, Keith.  That means you spill all the beans. I didn’t mean How-are-you?  I meant _How are you_?”  Hunks face shuffled for a second before landing on puppy-dog-eyes.

 

Shiro stood up and went to join the others in picking a game, the traitor.  Keith watched him go. It gave him something to do that wasn’t answering Hunk.

 

“Keith, buddy, pal, friend, brother-in-arm?”

 

“Isn’t it brother-in-arms?  Plural?”

 

“Yeah, but you’re only one arm of Voltron.”

 

Keith groaned.  

 

“Seriously though Keith, how are you doing?”  Hunk leaned back.

 

Keith rubbed his thumb over the cuff of his glove.  “Better than I’ve been in a long time.”

It wasn’t a lie.

 

Hunk mulled that one over for a second, squinting at Keith appraisingly.  “Well then.” Hunk stood, offering him a hand. “Let’s go pick a game.”

 

Keith accepted the hand, allowing Hunk to pull him to his feet.  As he did, his belt snagged briefly from beneath the back cushion.

 

The deck of cards.

 

They could play that card game he’d been hoping for.

 

> **Suggest a card game.** (Jump to Chapter 23)

> **Play the Altean games.** (Jump to Chapter 35)


	33. Chapter 33

ANOTHER FILLER


	34. Chapter 34

One day this will be whump  :D

 


	35. Chapter 35

There would always be time later for his card game, so he followed Hunk over to the altean games instead.  

 

Keith crouched down, picking up a triangular container that was a different color on each side.  The inside was full of colorful crystals, and he pushed a button, which projected altean words into the air above it.

 

“Ooooh!”  Hunk reached into the box, admiring the crystals in his cupped palms.  

 

Pidge poked her head over to see.  “It’s like those bags of rocks they sell in the gift shop at museums, except prettier.”  She skimmed over the instructions. “Oh man, the whole thing is about color coding! We have to play this one!”

 

Lance sulked and hugged the game he’d been looking over.  

 

“We’ll play yours next, Lance.  We have all night.”

 

He brightened a little at that, and scooted over to the pile of snacks they’d left behind.

 

-o-o-o-o-o-

 

“I’m going to try--- this one.”

 

Shiro plopped a crystal down on the centerpiece of the board, which made a negative sound and shot it back out.  Shiro frowned.

 

“It said red, didn’t it?”

 

Pidge looked over the boards display with a frown.  “Well, it’s one of the words that translate as red?”

 

“They have so many words for the exact same colors.  What gives?” Lance was feeding Allura’s mice from the bowl of space popcorn, having lost so many rounds on his “purple” turn that the game had kicked him out.

 

Keith picked up one of the odd shades of red and tossed it to Shiro.  “Try this one.”

 

He placed it on the centerpiece, and the game warbled happily in response.

 

“Dude, how do you keep doing that?”  Hunk pouted.

 

Keith shrugged.  “They’re different shades?”

 

“They are literally the exact same color, Keith.”

 

“They aren’t though.”  Keith frowned, holding two up for comparison.  “That’s like saying that orange is red.”

 

“Hmmm.”  Hunk looked between the two stones.  “Maybe Keith can see colors that we can’t?”

 

Pidge adjusted her glasses, leaning in close.  After a moment, Keith realized that her eyeball was only grazing the crystals and that she was actually looking at him.  He stared back, daring her to break eye contact first.

 

“Of course Keith would be able to see extra colors.”  Lance sulked.

 

Keith set the crystals down.  “We can just play a different game.”

 

“Sure, sure, but first,”  Pidge shoved the entire pile of crystals towards Keith, “Arrange these in rainbow order.  We need more data.” Pidge watched expectantly as he began sorting the crystals into basic piles.  You didn’t fight Pidge about these things.

 

“What do the other colors look like?”  Shiro asked.

 

Keith paused, eyebrows pinched in thought.  “You know how indigo crayons are barely unique enough to be called a separate color?  It’s like that. Except red and purple.”

 

“That’s--- basically what we already know.”

 

Keith clenched his jaw and breathed through his nose.

 

“Do you think it has something to do with the galra thing?”  Hunk mused

 

Aaand there it was.  He clenched his fist over the gemstone he was sorting.  Shiro eyed him, brow creased.

 

“I bet that’s why you’re so good at fighting!”

 

“Were the other galra you met pretty feisty, or is that just you?”

 

“I wonder what other physiological variations galra genetics might contribute to?”  

 

He stood abruptly and began walking.  Shiro called after him, and Keith waved vaguely, muttering “bathroom” as he retreated through the door without turning.  No one ever asked questions if you said bathroom.

 

He didn’t stop until he was safely behind the closed door to his room.  This was stupid. He shouldn’t have run off like that. Stupid stupid stupid!

 

He glared at the wall.

 

The blank wall glared back, unblinking.

 

He looked away first.  He needed a distraction, so he set to polishing his knife on the hem of his shirt.  He rubbed off the smudges where his fingers had brushed against the metal, admiring the flawless, gleaming surface.  It took all of one minute, and he had nothing to do again.

 

He threw himself down on the bed with a sigh.  He couldn’t go back. He didn’t want to have that conversation; he’d had it enough with himself.  He looked at his reflection in the blade, and one bitter eye stared back.

 

So many people seemed to cling to any little thing that might make them unique, as if that somehow made their existence more worthwhile.  They flaunted their special little things, begging for the world to acknowledge their existence. They wanted to be different, to be special, to be set apart.  He opened his clenched fist and held up the purple crystal he’d accidentally run off with.

 

Keith didn’t want to be special, didn’t care if he was human, galra, talented, broken, angry, or whatever trait people chose to pick out and label him with next.  He just wanted to be kind, in return for the kindness he had been shown. To help people. The most mundane person in the universe could be kind, and it would still be beautiful.

 

Most of all, he just wanted to be seen as himself, regardless.

 

His musings were interrupted by a knock on the door.  The bathroom trick hadn’t worked after all.

 

“What.”  He growled tersely, not moving from where he lay on the bed.

 

“Hey, man, it’s us.”

 

Keith didn’t respond.

 

“Uh, can we come in?”

 

“Sure.”  He replied after a moment.  Better to face it head on, he supposed.

 

“We’re sorry!”  Hunk shouted before the door had opened all the way.  “I’m sorry! I knew you didn’t like bringing up Galra Keith stuff and I did it anyway!”  He threw himself down to hug Keith’s legs where they were hanging over the bed.

 

It was hard to stay mad at Hunk.  “It’s fine.” He said to the ceiling.

 

“Clearly it’s not, if you left the room because of it.”  Shiro called from his leaning position at the doorway. “Do you want to talk about it?”

 

Leave it to Shiro, the person who should know best that he didn’t want to talk, to suggest talking it out.  

 

He examined the ceiling for a moment while Lance and Pidge settled down next to Hunk.  He could see Shiro watching him from his periphery. “I don’t hate that I’m part galra.”  He began slowly. It was important that they understood that. “It’s part of me, and I’m ok with that.”  He paused, rubbing his thumb over the gemstone as he mulled over his words. “I guess--- there are, there are a lot of things that maybe could be explained, because of the galra thing.  Things people have called, ah, problems, in the past. But, I don’t want to think of them that way. I don’t want to blame anything for who or what I am. I just want to be me. And I guess I don’t know how to handle all of it yet, and sometimes it’s easier to just avoid it, I guess.”  He pursed his lips meaningfully at Shiro, who smiled serenely back.

 

He lay there, turning back to stare at the ceiling as a blush crept up his neck.  “Sorry for walking out on you.”

 

Hunk squeezed his legs tighter, and he felt a pat on his knee from Lance’s direction.

 

“For what it’s worth, we think you’re a pretty cool guy.”  Pidge mumbled.

 

“Except for the mullet.”  Lance amended. The knee pat turned into a poke, which had Keith kicking reflexively.

 

“Wait, are your knees ticklish?”  Hunks eyebrows waggled.

 

“We’re bonding, Hunk.  Don’t ruin it too quickly.”

 

It was not an average day, but that was ok.  

Average days get boring after a while.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Slightly Less Average Ending


	36. Chapter 36

Keith slid his hand out of the machinery and flinched back, using his arms to shield his face.  The machine above him sparked and screamed, or was that Hunk screaming? Either way, something started tugging on his leg insistently, and he cracked an eye open to see what was happening.

 

He was met by the fluctuating wall of light.  It hadn’t seemed this bright earlier when it had been over the console, but having it right in his face changed things.

 

The tugging stopped at the same moment the wall of light descended on him.

 

-o-o-o-o-o-

 

“Princess!”

 

Keith was aware that something was wrong.  His chest hurt. He felt---tired. There were voices arguing somewhere above him.  

 

“At this rate, she’s---!”  

 

\---Coran?

 

“What’s the matter!” A new voice called from across the room.  It sounded like a child? “Why aren’t you fighting?!”

 

Keith stirred.

 

“We’re worried about the boss.”  That one was definitely hunk, though something was off there too.

 

“Then let me pilot the blue lion!”  the child voice again. “I will fight in the princess’ stead!”

 

Yeah, something really weird was going on here.  Keith struggled to sit up, vision spotting with starbursts.  His chest screamed at him, and he realized belatedly that he had bandages wrapped heavily around some sort of injury.  Was something wrong with the pods?

 

“Wait,”  he bit out, grimacing, “what is going on here?”

 

“Kogane!”  

 

Ok, weird.  No one used his last name, but whatever.  “I’m not dead yet.” He grumbled, taking a good look around the room.  “What’s happening?” Hunk, Lance, and Pidge were decked out in their paladin armor, and there was a little kid?  In a cape--? Looking fit to burst. Coran waved a communicator, distress evident on his face.

 

“The princess is trying to hold of a robeast by herself, and she’s in trouble!”

 

Allura was in trouble?  And yet here they all were, sitting around like it was nothing.  Keith was dumbfounded. “What the quiznack is everyone standing around here for then!?” he growled.  They shuffled awkwardly, but made no move to go. Keith stood, anger boiling over. “I’ll go.”

 

“That’s too much!”

 

He looked up, teeth bared.  The little caped child was frowning at him.  

 

“You’re in no condition to fight.  You could very well be going to your death!”

 

Keith shook his head. “That’s a risk we take every time we pilot the lions.”

 

He took a breath, turned, and walked out of the room as quickly as he could, sweat beading on his forehead.  All of this was wrong. So many levels of wrong. He was beyond angry.

 

“Wait up!”  a voice called out behind him.

 

He was not waiting up at a time like this. _They_ would just have to catch up instead.  He continued walking, breathing heavily.  He felt his heart staggering along with him.  This was an incredibly stupid dream. In what universe wouldn’t the team jump to help each other, regardless of the stakes?

 

Rapid footsteps approached from behind, and he clenched his jaw, still seething.

 

“We brought your gear.  Are you going to be able to get it on by yourself?”  It was Lance.

 

Keith snatched the proffered armor.  Or, he would have, but it ended up being more of a fumble where he dropped the helmet and both leg guards.  He ended up leaning against the wall for support.

 

“Here, let us help you.”  Pidge (was she always that short?) grabbed the helmet, and Hunk went for his undersuit.  He did not grin, but he could swallow his pride and bear their help for Allura’s sake.

 

Allura, who was fighting alone.

 

He snagged the helmet and started walking again the moment the last piece clicked into place.  He was still out of breath, and his head was starting to throb from the exertion, but a healing pod would take care of that once this was all over.

 

They entered the bridge, and everyone ran to their respective doors, except that Lance disappeared down the red lions elevator and Keith was left alone with a lot of questions.  

 

Why in the world did Lance take the red lion?  What the heck was Allura doing, out flying a lion in the first place?  Where was Shiro in all of this?

 

The caped kid had mentioned the blue lion needing a pilot.  Would the blue lion even let someone who wasn’t Lance pilot it?  His headache flared, and he reached out, trying to get a feel for the lion bond.  To his surprise, he felt a positive response from the blue lion. Apparently she was just as antsy as he was to help the princess.  

 

He shrugged.  Good enough for him.

 

-o-o-o-o-o-

 

The four lions sped out towards the Black Lion’s beacon, bending trees with the force of their passing.

 

“Guys!”  Allura cried as they came into range.

 

Keith sagged in relief.  “Sorry for the wait, Princess.”  His vision was spotting again after the ridiculously long trip down to the blue lion.  Why couldn’t the hangars be closer to the bridge? He felt his consciousness jump slightly, and Blue nudged at him, worried.

 

He grit his teeth.  “I can’t keep this up for long.  Let’s form Voltron and finish it off!”

 

“Kogane!”  Allura never called him that, further proof that this was a stupid dream.  Strangely vivid, but stupid.

 

Everyone cheered encouragingly, and Allura gave the command to combine.  They formed Voltron somehow, through the floating sparks that populated his vision.  

 

The robeast met each of their attacks, and Keith was starting to zone out a little when a hard hit had him gasping back into reality, chest prickling and warm.  

 

“We just got nailed with our own weapon!”  

 

The robeast had pinned them to the ground, and the sound of straining metal filled Keith’s ears.

 

“It’s quick!”  

 

Pidge swore, and Keith raised an eyebrow.  Things seemed to have gone downhill quickly with Shiro away.

 

Allura shot at the things eye, and it reared back.  A good call, he supposed. Voltron stood, and Allura took a good swing at it with their sword.  It may have been quick, but it was the poster child of glass cannons. One swipe, and the whole thing went up in actual flames.

 

Keith wanted to laugh at how ridiculous all of this was, but the movement caused his chest to seize up.  The stars grew, and everywhere they didn’t touch got swallowed up in grey. He could tell that his arm was sliding from the controls, but didn’t feel more than a vague thump as it hit the side of his chair.  There were voices on the intercom, but they were unintelligible over the sound of his heartbeat.

 

_Please let this be over already._

 

-o-o-o-o-o-

 

“Keith!”

 

Something was slapping at his face, and he frowned, swatting it away.  He opened an eye and found himself sitting in the lounge, surrounded by the entire team (minus a Slav).

 

“You with us buddy?”

 

He patted at his chest, relieved for find a t-shirt and no bandages.  

 

“Yeah, I’m with you.  What happened?”

 

“The teludav went crazy!”  Hunk shook his shoulders for emphasis.  “It swallowed half of you---”

 

“---and several of us from the deck---”  Lance added.

 

“--and!”  Hunk continued, “after we pulled you back out, you were acting really weird!  Pidge fixed the control panel, but you were still weird!”

 

Shiro stepped forward.  “Slav had us bring you to the lounge because of the ‘excessive fissures in the furniture’ or something, and everything seems to have sorted itself out?”

 

“I had a weird dream where everyone was an idiot.”  Keith added his part.

 

“Actually,”  Pidge adjusted her glasses, “that might not have been a dream.”

 

“We believe you were temporarily switched with the Keith of another reality.”  Allura clasped her hands.

 

Keith looked around, but no one seemed to be joking.  Even Shiro nodded.

 

Something dinged behind him.  “Well!” Coran danced back around to the front of the couches, “It looks like reality has stabilized again!  Excellent work!”

 

He grimaced as everything started falling into place.  Hopefully the other Keith guy would be ok.

 

“Um.”  He cleared his throat, earning everyone's attention.  “I’m glad to be back. And sorry about the control panel.”

 

“Eeeh, it wasn’t that hard to fix, after we were done panicking over you.”  Pidge grinned after a moment, like a second thought. “You know, that other guy was pretty funny.  He was upset about your hair for a minute there.”

 

“Oh yeah!”  Lance jumped in, “He asked what happened to his hair!  Apparently it wasn’t mullet-y enough for him!”

 

Keith frowned.  “That’s because it’s not a mullet, Lance.”

 

“It’s a baby mullet, Mullet.”  Lance sniffed.

 

“Whatever.”

 

“He said I was acting too nice!”  Hunk’s lower lip trembled dramatically.  “I’m always nice in every reality!”

 

“Well,”  Keith thought back, “The other Hunk helped me with my armor.  That was nice of him?”

 

Hunk nodded, satisfied.

 

“He was quite distraught when he saw Shiro!”  Coran added. “And he seemed rather, ah, close, with Allura!”

 

Lance pouted slightly.

 

Keith whipped around, horrified, but Allura didn’t seem to be offended.  “It’s fine, Keith. We know it wasn’t you.”

 

“Yeah?  Well you guys were just sitting around while the princess got beat up by a giant robot.”  He deflected. Their horrified faces made him feel a little better. “Also, Allura was in the Black Lion?  And Lance was in Red. I had to pilot Blue.”

 

“No way!”  Lance pouted fully.  “Blue is my girl!”

 

Keith shrugged.  “Pidge was like this tall.”  He held his hand out about a meter off the floor, to Pidges protests.

 

“And Coran?”  

 

The alien in question perked up.

 

“Your moustache is great in all realities.”

 

He stroked his moustache proudly, and everyone laughed.

 

Keith glanced around, smiling.  They had their moments. Not only could things have been worse, they could have been downright awful, and he was glad to belong to this reality, Slav and all.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The GoLion Ending
> 
> I'm not super happy with this one, but I also wasn't super happy with that episode so


	37. Chapter 37

“I’ll go with Pidge and Lance.”  Keith swung an exaggeratedly friendly arm back over Lance’s shoulder in retaliation.  “Wouldn’t want to leave him unsupervised while Pidge is busy.”

 

“Hey!”  Lance withdrew his own arm and ducked under Keith’s.  

 

Allura nodded.  “It is decided, then.  Suit up, everyone. They’re already heading for the first planet, and we must be prepared”

 

-o-o-o-o-o-

 

“You’d think the empire would have better anti-cloaking device stuff after ten thousand years, you know?”  Lance whispered as Pidge maneuvered the green lion around the galra flagship. 

 

“I dunno, Lance,”  Pidge whispered back, “I haven’t seen anyone else using them, and the Empire hasn’t had much of a problem conquering everything up to this point.  It would be pointless to put resources into countering something that isn’t a problem.” 

 

She parked Green next to a small airlock that was used for garbage disposal. 

 

“Well maybe you haven’t seen them because they’re  _ invisible _ .”

 

Pidge paused. 

 

Keith rolled his eyes.  “You don’t need to whisper, you know.  They can’t hear us.”

 

“That’s no fun.”  Pidge grinned, punching a few buttons.  The console dimmed, energy re-routing to keep the cloak stable.

 

“Does everyone have their backup chip?”  She asked. They both nodded.

 

“Good luck, team.”  Shiro’s called out over the comms.

 

They pushed off from the Green Lion's mouth, and Pidge hacked the door open after a moment, allowing everyone to jet inside.  “The entire alarm system is connected to a single circuit, kind of like cheap christmas lights, and I just blew one of the bulbs to get us in.” Pidge spoke as they landed, door closing behind them to pressurize the room, “So while they won’t be able to call for backup, we also won’t know right away if they notice something.  We’ll have to depend on the others to keep us up to date outside, and be on alert for anything on the inside.” 

 

A quick scan showed the next room to be empty, so the three darted through the next door and down the hallway.  Keith’s heart rate picked up, senses primed as they made their way into the ship. They were heading for the first floor of a two-tiered equipment room, where they would plug into the coolant system, upload Pidge’s program, and leave.  Easy peasy. 

 

An engine kicked on somewhere nearby, filling the hallways with a quiet hum, and the three ducked into a closet.  “The ship is moving.” Allura’s voice crackled over the comms. “They are hailing the nearest planet. What is your status?”

 

“Nearly there,”  Pidge replied, scanning through the door for heat signatures.  She gave the all clear and they moved. 

 

Two lefts and a right later, they arrived at their destination.  The room was full of pipes, vents, and machinery, and Keith was reminded of the time he’d found the schools boiler room unlocked and taken a peek inside.  After the three had taken a good look around, Pidge moved soundlessly forward towards a large pillar. 

 

Bright blue tubes protruded from the top, softly glowing in the dim light.  She inserted her microchip and began typing away at the console, fingers making soft tapping sounds against the glass.  Lance and Keith crept forward, both standing to her right as she worked. 

 

Allura hailed them again.  “Negotiations with the planet have broken down.  The enemy ships are moving into attack formation.”

 

“The program is ready to go, I just need to get past this stupid bioscanner protocol.”  She grit out, frustration evident. 

 

“Bioscanner?”  Lance repeated, turning to take a look.

 

“Yeah, it’s kind of like a fingerprint reader, only it scans for a specific gene and amino acid derived hormone combination.”  Lance and Keith both stared, but Pidge continued, unfazed. “They like to use them on everything, and they keep changing the combination they use, so I have to figure it out again every other week or so.  Honestly though, I didn’t think they’d have it on their A.C. unit. Talk about overkill.” Pidge grumbled. 

 

“Um.”  Keith hesitantly reached out and placed a hand on the touchscreen, and after a moment it dinged and turned magenta.  Pidge froze mid action, mouth forming an o as she put two and two together.

 

“Nice.”  Lance nodded approvingly.  Keith shrugged and stepped back.

 

“The coolant system is compromised.”  Pidge checked in after a few more ticks, closing out of the touchscreen.  “We’re heading back to Green.”

 

They were on their way down a long, doorless hallway when their luck ran out.  Several sentries rounded the corner, and both groups froze. 

 

“Shields!”  Keith shouted, and the three of them activated just as the first shots were fired.  “It’s all you, Lance!”

 

Said paladin stepped back, lowering his shield as Keith and Pidge grouped together.  His bayard transformed, and he leaned out, returning fire on the bots. 

 

“What’s happening?”  Allura asked.

 

“We were found out before we made it back to Green.”  Pidge replied, shield steady. “We’ll keep you updated.”

 

The firefight was short lived, and the three stood, shields deactivated.  Lance blew on his bayards muzzle, smirking.

 

“We need to move.”  Pidge said. “They had plenty of time to send off a distress signal.”

 

They ran, stealth no longer a priority with their position compromised.  The garbage disposal room was just ahead, and Keith almost dared to hope they would make it out without another incident.  Sadly, that would not have made for a very exciting story.

 

Three patrol bots and some sort of repair droid were hovering around the alarm panel, apparently having figured out that their bulb had been blown.  The three bots turned and immediately began firing, forcing the paladins to activate their shields, Pidge to his right, and Lance to his left. 

 

The hairs on the back of Keiths neck prickled, and Keith glanced back down the hallway.  His heart dropped all the way to his toes as several more sentries rounded the corner, weapons humming as they were activated.   

 

His adrenaline spiked, vision focusing in on the threat, and the moment stretched.  Lance stiffened off to his left, probably in response to Keith’s reaction, but Pidge still had her back turned, oblivious.

 

There were too many sentries and not enough time.  He started the motion to spin around with his shield.  Pidge was a smaller target, but Lance was the only one who had a ranged weapon to retaliate with.  Pidge was the sister that Keith never had, and Lance was a friend he hadn’t dared to hope for. Pidge was to his right, and Lance to his left.  Shoving either of them would compromise their defense from the front. Both were exposed, and there was only one of him. 

 

He could only protect one of them.

 

> **Shield Pidge.** (Jump to Chapter 7)

> **Shield Lance.** (Jump to Chapter 27)


	38. Chapter 38

There were few things in the universe that Keith was more afraid of than the simple inability to act.

 

Maybe that’s why he was always the first to charge ahead, the one to make rash decisions and lash out where others hesitated.  Anything was better than nothing. Trusting Lance and Pidge to clear the way as he just stood there, shield raised in defiance against the approaching wall of sentries was one of the hardest things Keith had ever done in his life.  But he did. He did trust them. He trusted all of his teammates, and that is what made the difference.

 

Pidge appeared at his side, shield raised, and Lance shot between them at an oncoming sentry.

 

“I can’t run with him!”  Pidge shouted, “It has to be you, Keith!”

 

Lance was leaning carefully against a wall, forehead shiny with sweat.  Keith whirled toward him, shield dropping as Pidge took over.

 

“Hey now, careful!”  Lance winced as Keith leaned towards him, “Anything but a shoulder carry, ok?  I don’t think I can take that right now.”

 

Piggyback it was, then.  Lance’s helmet clanked against Keith's with every step.  Pidge let out a whoop, having tangled several sentries in the cord of her electrified bayard.  As much as he loved swords and knives and pointy things in general, times like these made Keith wish that his bayard had a range option, too.

 

Pidge slammed the door behind them as they flew into the garbage disposal, spinning around to bury her bayard in the panel.  Keith bend forward slightly, breath coming in gasps. Lance was a _lot_ heavier than he had expected.

 

“They are preparing to fire the cannon.”  Allura informed, voice tense.

 

Keith staggered the rest of the way into the airlock before allowing Lance to slide down to the ground, crouching slightly to make it easier.  Pidge followed soon after, nodding at them before activating the seal.

 

Lance pressed desperately at his injuries as they came into contact with the void of space, gasping sharply in discomfort.  Keith launched them forward, and he thought he saw a yellow blur in his periphery before Green swallowed them, seemingly out of nowhere.

 

“Cannon firing in ten,” Coran warbled over the comms.

 

“Nine,”

 

Pidge barreled for the controls--

 

“Eight.  Seven. Six.”

 

\--Keith helped ease Lance into a sitting position, careful of his injuries.

 

“Five.  Four.”

 

Pidge pulled Green away as fast as she could.

 

“Three.  Two.”

 

“One.”

 

A silent flash of incredibly bright light filled the cockpit, and then it was over.  They sat for a moment in the quiet. Keith was struck by an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

 

“Well.”  Lance winced.  “That was really anticlimactic.”  

 

The déjà vu intensified.

 

“Excellent job, paladins!”  Allura cheered over the speaker.  Slav was audible somewhere in the background, but no one was really paying attention.

 

“How’s Lance?”  Hunk called out, worried.  He must have been listening in over the comms.

 

“I’m fine.”  Lance replied before Keith could respond.

 

Hunk sighed at the sound of his voice, and Lance rested his head against the wall, smiling.  Pidge steered towards the castle, which hovered sideways near a grey-green planet. Black and Yellow pulled up on both sides of the Green Lion.

 

Keith raised an eyebrow, and Lance pouted back.  “What? I _am_ fine.  Lasers wounds self cauterize, man, it just stings a little.”

 

Keith chewed his lower lip at the reminder, stomach twisting with guilt.  “Hey Lance-- I’m-- uh, sorry. For not, having your back. Back there.” He looked down, avoiding eye contact.

 

Lance regarded him for a moment, considering.  “It was me or Pidge, right?”

 

Keith shrugged, and Lance settled back even further.  “You’re only one person, Keith. You tried to warn me.  You did everything you could. It’s fine.”

 

“But you could have--!”

 

“Nu-uh-uh,”  Lance interrupted, “Could’ve would’ve should’ve.  I said it was fine.” he jutted out his chin for emphasis.  

 

It wasn’t nearly as fun to argue with Lance when he was injured, so Keith conceded.  

Just this once.

 

He leaned against the wall next to Lance as they pulled in to the castle hangar and thought.  Dangerous, yes, but necessary.

 

Individually, they may not always be able to act.  That was life. But maybe that’s why Voltron was made out of five lions rather than one.  It was always meant to be a team effort, and between all of them, he thought, maybe things really could turn out fine, after all.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An Ending
> 
> Yeah turns out I don't know how to write injured people.


	39. Chapter 39

FUTURE CHAPTER ARC


	40. Chapter 40

He couldn’t move either way.

 

He closed his eyes as the energy engulfed his form.

 

A chill passed over him.

 

Rapid footsteps approached, and he looked up to see Shiro sprinting his way.

 

Shiro.

 

He didn’t understand.  Shiro was--- Shiro---

 

“Paladins,”  Coran’s voice floated in a wave of static.  “There---fortunate-- --t---teluda---- -- - --- fluct-- i---ace - --  -” 

 

It was all static to Keith, who stood in a daze in the middle of the hallway. Shiro opened his mouth, but paused as he got a closer look at Keith’s face.  

 

“Hey, are you alright?”  He questioned, eyebrows scrunched in concern.  “Keith?”

 

Keith’s mouth opened, closed, and opened again.  Relief flooded through him, even as something instinctual caused him to tense up.  “You,” he found his voice, “what--? We were just---” 

 

The metal beneath his feet shrieked, even louder than it had before, and the world tipped sideways.  Keith caught himself this time, heart racing as he stood back up. A crack split the floor-turned-wall where he’d been standing, and he watched the two support pillars on each side of the hallway began to collapsed downward like an empty soda can underfoot.  

 

“Run!”  Shiro cried. Keith didn’t need to be told twice.  They tore down the hallway wall, Keith half a step behind, vaulting over a pillar that collapsed seconds after their passing.  A door slid open at their approach, and Keith recognized it as the stairwell from before. The stairwell would be safe!

 

Keith hopped down, but Shiro didn’t know  He couldn’t have known. He slowed as he realized that Keith had stopped, turned back halfway, and then he was gone, replaced by a pile of rubble.

_ Again _ .

 

Keith screamed at the ceiling of rubble in rage.  He punched out the teal wall light beneath him, he tugged and tore and scrabbled at the unyielding chunks of metal above him in the near dark until his hands bled, and then he slammed his fist against the floor again and again and again.  This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t fair.

 

The ship creaked, and the room lit up in the soft glow of the something next to him.

 

It was the wall of energy, jiggling back and forth in slow waves.

 

Keith glared at it.  This thing had appeared both times, both times directly after Shiro had---.  

He still had no idea what was going on, but something about the distorted glowing wall felt very  _ wrong _ .  He decided that he hated it.

 

But maybe, if it was the same as last time, it would let him try again.

 

He stood at the edge of a decision.

 

> **Keith touches the wall** (Jump to Chapter 18)

> **Keith avoids the wall** (Jump to Chapter 13)


	41. Chapter 41

Keith was pretty sure Slav could manage by himself, probably, but Lance and Allura were alone in the unknown.  It wasn’t a difficult decision. He turned, took a deep breath, and charged toward the barrier.

 

He braced for impact.

 

His ears popped, and he found himself at the base of an orange stone tower, in the middle of a field of blue grass.  All of this was, to top it off, obscured in part by the wobbly energy wall, which was stalking his periphery. Every time he turned his head to get a better view of it, it jumped away to the edge of his vision.

 

Creepy.  But more importantly, his friends.

 

“Lance!”  Keith cried, turning as he shouted.  “Lance! Where are you!? Allura!” He circled the building, and found a door on the other side.  “Lance?”

 

He reached for the door, and had pushed it part of the way open before something slammed into it from the inside.

 

“Naaah-aaah-aah!  Think again, suckers!  Break the curse or there’s another hour of baby shark on the table for you!”  The voice, although muffled by the door, was distinctly Lance’s voice.

 

“Lance!  It’s me! Keith, your buddy!”  Keith stepped back, relieved to have found him so soon.

 

“Yeah, yeah, and I’m King Groggery the Infirm.”

 

Keith paused, and then frowned, knocking insistently on the door.  “Lance! It’s me, Keith!”

 

A snort echoed through the door.  “You’re not even trying anymore.”

 

“Come on and open the door!  It’s really me!”

 

“Nope.”  came the reply, the p accented with a loud pop.

 

Keith ground his teeth in frustration.  “Lance! Stop messing around. We have to find Allura and get back to the castleship!”

 

“Yeah?  Prove it.  Tell me something only Keith could tell me.”

 

“Uh, you don’t like my hair.”

 

“Newsflash, no one likes Keith’s hair.”

 

Keith blinked, reaching up to touch his hair in mild offense. “Yeah, well your music sucks.”

 

“Try again.  Also, rude?”

 

Keith huffed, folding his arms.  “I took your deck of playing cards.  They’re in my pouch right now.”

 

The silence stretched for a few seconds before the door creaked open a crack, revealing a squinty eye and half of a smirk.  “I forgot that I even had those.”

 

Keith rolled his eyes, and Lance ushered him in hastily before closing the door again, lodging a chair under the handle before turning to face Keith.

 

“Thank goodness you’re actually here.”  Lance let out a long sigh before continuing.  “Good news, I found Allura. Bad news, she was being held prisoner in this tower by creepy little hobbit jawas that can read your mind.”  He smirked. “More good news, I drove them away by playing annoying songs on repeat in my brain. Apparently they don’t have an off switch for their telepathy.”  Lance leaned in close, pointing at his forehead.

 

Keith had no words.  

 

Lance hesitated.  “More bad news, though.  They got a curse on Allura in retaliation and now she won’t wake up.”  Lance deflated, biting his lip as he pointed to a corner where Allura was laying on some sort of miniature futon.

 

Keith crouched next to Allura, feeling for a pulse, which was thankfully going strong.  “Did they say anything else?”

 

Lance hesitated again, gaze lowering to his feet.  “I dunno, they chanted a bunch of fairy tale garbage about---about true loves kiss and stuff before Allura passed out?”

 

This time it was Keith’s eyebrows that disappeared into his hairline.

 

“Don’t look at me like that!”

 

Keith continued to look at him like that as Lance shuffled.  “And did you try it?”

 

Lance deflated.  “There’s no way it would work, you know.  I mean, I really, really, admire her,” Lance scuffed the toe of his shoe, “but there’s no way someone like Allura would… you know.  L-lo---like me back. Besides, It’d be creepy if I tried to kiss her like this.”

 

Something sad curled up inside of Keith at the admission, but something else cautiously glimmered, and Keith rolled with it.

 

“Lance.”  Keith spoke gently, though it wasn’t an easy thing to do.  

 

Lance raised his eyes, shame fading slightly in the face of curiosity.

 

“What is love?”

 

Lance stared for a moment, until he was sure that Keith wasn’t teasing.

 

“The way you feel about someone?  A way to live? Everything? I don’t know.”

 

“I’m not entirely sure, either,”  Keith replied, and he was quiet for a moment, struggling for words. “Maybe---maybe it’s different for everyone.  But honestly? I’d say it’s how much you care for someone, regardless of--- romantic interest--- so, yeah. That’s true love.  I believe that any one of us could wake her up. Though, maybe especially you.”

 

And to illustrate his point with more grace than his words, Keith lifted Allura’s hand to his mouth, and gently pressed his lips to her fingers.

 

Allura jerked away and shot up to her feet, nearly smacking Keith in the face during the process.  She swung a fist wildly, and Keith only avoided a concussion because he was already on the ground.

 

Allura may have been a princess, but she was not of the fairy tale variety.  

 

“You’ll have a great deal more to--- oh dear!  Keith?” She stepped towards him in alarm.

 

Keith picked himself up off the floor just as something scratched against his mind.

 

This seemed to be some sort of cue for Lance, who wiped the shock from his face with a dark grin.  “Baby shark it is!”

 

Something started screaming outside, and the knocking intensified before retreating.

 

Allura cocked her head, a question dying on her lips as she took in the situation.  After a moment, her eyes lit up, and she reached out as though to grab at something.  Something which ended up being the distortion from Keith's periphery. She pulled it down towards the three like a chiffon curtain billowing in a gale, and it whipped and licked around them like a flame as they were encircled.

 

Keith’s ears popped, and he stumbled again, landing awkwardly on his shoulder.  His belt snagged on a chair, and the deck of playing cards spilled over the floor.  Allura was already at the helm, pulling back, the distortions sliding through the walls like smoke.  Within moments, it was as though nothing had happened at all.

 

Slav coughed somewhere in the background.

 

Lance crouched down next to Keith, and picked a card from the top of the scattered deck on the floor.  He shot Keith a lopsided grin, flipping it over to reveal the queen of hearts, before offering him a hand.  Keith accepted, allowing himself to be pulled up. Lance collected the rest of the deck, patting them into a neat pile before handing them back to Keith.

 

“You can hold on to these,”  Lance said, scratching his head.  “And---thank you.” Lance stepped away, hands in pockets.

 

The intercom screeched back to life, releasing the final twist of worry in his gut and replacing it with a fond warmth as Pidge took control of the intercom to argue with Slav about circuits and polarity.

 

It was not a perfectly average day, but it was a perfectly good day for being Keith.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Queen Of Hearts Ending
> 
> Totally just my opinion, feel free to disagree.


	42. Chapter 42

 

The perfectly average day that I'll write about later


	43. Chapter 43

Moving would only draw attention to himself, so he held as still as possible.  Maybe they’d glance over him or think he was asleep.

 

“How are you liking the movie?”  Allura whispered.

 

“It’s very--- artistic?”  Lance replied groggily from where he was wedged into Hunk’s side, earning an enthusiastic nod from Allura.  

 

She clasped her hands in her lap, turning to watch the movie.  “It’s almost at the best part, too,” she continued, eyes sparkling as she watched the screen.  “Juniberry plants need to grow in groups for their root systems to fully develop. They intertwine to support one another during the summer rock storms.”  A pause. “Or, they did.” She amended wistfully.

 

Everyone had settled back into the couch, and no one even looked in Keith’s direction, to his great relief.  As Allura’s revelation sank in, he glanced back to the screen in growing horror, the direction of the story suddenly clear.  The juniberry had sent it’s roots out as far as it could, but none of the local flora had responded to the desperate reaching.  The cheeto looking things growing around it didn’t even have a root system to attempt to intertwine with, and the blue moss stuff that had grown up the stem of the juniberry had done nothing but sap nutrients out of it and the surrounding plants the entire time.  The juniberry was doomed.

 

The first rock fell.  It missed the juniberry, but it was searing hot, and the ground around it shriveled and curled at its touch.  Then another fell, and another. One struck the juniberry on it’s way down, and it bent at a painful angle, not quite springing back into an upright position.

 

Keith didn’t know if he could watch.  Just when it seemed like the juniberry was doomed to certain destruction, a rock hit the cheeto like organism next to it, and like a spring loaded umbrella, it mushroomed out into a dome that shielded itself and the little juniberry.  As the boiling hot rocks bounced from the cheeto canopy and rolled dangerously close, the blue moss expanded in the direction of the heat, providing a buffer between the searing stones and the juniberry.

 

And when the storm was over, the juniberry still stood tall, if a little crookedly.  The blue mossy stuff no longer felt like such a burden, and the cheeto thing no longer appeared so indifferent and useless.  Keith wanted to be relieved, but something still bothered him about the situation.

 

“What can the juniberry possibly contribute?”  He whispered over the sound of quiet, deep breaths in the near dark.  For a second, he thought that Allura hadn’t heard him, but she turned, eyes lit by the glow of her cheek markings.

 

“The juniberry gathers ambient quintessence from the environment and concentrates it.  Anything living in conjunction with a juniberry will have an exceptional lifespan and increased healing capabilities.  Everything has a purpose.”

 

“Oh.”  Keith relaxed back into the couch and bit at his lip, brow furrowed in thought.  Rag tag as they were, they too had banded together in a way that benefitted them all, benefitted the entire universe, even if it hadn’t been apparent at first.  

 

The thought sent a surge of warmth through his chest, and he settled deeply into his Hunk/Shiro sandwich burrow.  He glanced up and saw that Allura was still watching him, a small but meaningful smile adorning her face in the way a ray of sunlight might catch on the edge of a ripple.

 

“I’m glad you liked it, Keith.”

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Allura Bonding Moment Ending


	44. Chapter 44

He kept walking, and Pidge let out a disappointed whine behind him.  They stepped on cracks every day, so what was the point of going out of his way to do it now?  But wait, was this one of the things Shiro had been talking about when he suggested to “lighten up” the other day---

 

Pidge didn’t seem to mind all that much though, as she sped back up to keep pace with him.  “Oh yeah! After you left, Allura suggested that we should have a  _ team building activity _ later, and she left us in charge.”  Pidge bumped her elbow into Keith’s arm.  He stiffened at the contact. “Are you busy?”

 

“Well, I was going to meet Shiro in the lounge---”

 

“Perfect!”  Pidge cried, dancing ahead.  “That’s where we’re going to hang out!  Er, team build. You can help me carry stuff!”

 

“---Okay?”  Keith followed as she veered towards the kitchen.

 

“Carry stuff” translated roughly into “help-me-and-Hunk-make-the-stuff-to-carry,” and Keith ended up in charge of the space popcorn, which was pink and smelt vaguely of horseradish.  

 

“Uuuh I wouldn’t sniff that too deeply.”  Hunk warned, and Keith pulled his face back from the pan.

 

“Hey,” Lance’s voice rang out over the intercom, “are you slackers ready yet?  Over.”

 

“You can’t rush art, Lance.”  Hunk sniffed. “Did you gather everything else already?”

 

“Yeah, I got Shiro to help.  Over.”

 

“We’ll be down in a minute.”

 

“Ten four, over and out.”  The intercom went quiet.

 

Hunk chuckled, gathering up various bowls of finished snacks.  “Onward!” He declared, and Pidge, who already had a mouthful of peanut butter cookie conglomerate, replied with an agreeable mmmph.

 

> (Jump to Chapter 26)


	45. Chapter 45

Normally, Keith would avoid these kinds of movies like the plague, but since Shiro was the one to suggest it, well. 

 

He could sit through a melodrama for Shiro.  

Probably.

 

“How about a movie?”  He replied, earning a cheer from Hunk, who had taken up residence in the spot between Keith and Lance.

 

Shiro stood.  “Any objections to watching Allura’s movie?”  

 

_ Me _ , Keith thought, sliding down in the chair.  He’d brought this upon himself. Everyone else seemed pretty excited to see what Alteans considered melodramatic, so Shiro slid the chip into a reader, activating the holoscreen.

 

A varga later found everyone full of snacks and half asleep.  Everyone but Keith. He was sandwiched between Shiro, who alternated between staring blankly at the screen and closing his eyes for extended periods, and Hunk, who was leaning back against the backrest (and Keith), eyes closed and mouth open.  Keith had been distracted by all the contact at first, but now he was very much involved in the movie, wide awake and fighting back tears as the story unfolded.

 

Alteans were seemingly obsessed with bright colors and metaphors.  In fact, there hadn’t been a single Altean on the screen thus far. Or words.  The story was about a juniberry seed that had fallen outside of its natural habitat and taken root, despite the unfavorable conditions.  The music swelled, and it took everything that Keith had not to sniffle and give himself away. He might actually die if Lance caught wind that he was getting emotional over a flower.  

 

The door slid open, and Allura snuck in.  Keith stared resolutely ahead, praying that she wouldn’t notice if his eyes were a little glassy.  She walked quietly to the other side of Pidge, who had allowed Lance into an upright position before sprawling back over him with the bowl of cookies.

 

Everyone stirred as Allura settled in, and Keith’s eyes widened in terror as one of his very watery eyes spilled over, a tear tracking its treacherous way down his cheek.  His heart picked up speed in fear of discovery. 

 

This was it.  This was how he was going to die.

 

> **Leave the room before they see.** (Jump to Chapter 16)

> **Wait it out and hope no one notices.** (Jump to Chapter 43)


	46. Chapter 46

The world disappeared in a blinding flash of white.

 

Slav rolled his eyes. “I am beginning to think humans are not so wonderful at following instructions.”

 

“I am also thinking the same,”  Sven agreed, having appeared out of nowhere.  

No one questioned it.

 

“Skipping to the end is really lame.”  Lance muttered.

 

Hunk shrugged.  “I mean, I’ve done it with books I didn’t like to see if it was worth continuing...?”  Lance elbowed him with a significant look, and Pidge snorted.

 

Coran laughed gleefully.  He was floating upside down, having been freed from all laws of physics, and the mice were hanging on for dear life as Allura’s hair billowed everywhere like the fluffy white cloud it resembled so strikingly. 

 

“Perhaps if we were to return to Chapter One, we could try again?”  she offered from somewhere in the fluff, and Shiro nodded his agreement.

 

Red roared in the distance, and Keith stumbled as he bumped into **The End** of the page.

 

  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Definitions:
> 
> Worse /wərs/: Not better

**Author's Note:**

> Does Keith even wear socks? Who knows.
> 
> Disclaimer, I don't really know anyone for proofreading, so this is not gonna be perfect. I apologize in advance for typos and grammatical errors.


End file.
